Just think of this way (these answers may not be your answers, but they apply to enough people to help illustrate the point):
Are there people starving in America right now?
Yes.
Could you feed them if you wanted to?
Yes.
Are you feeding them?
No.
Are you committing a crime?
No.
If you met one of them and had sex with him or her, would you cook them breakfast the next morning?
Possibly.
Would that be rape?
Not so much.
In the US, there are no laws requiring that we feed the starving, other than via taxes (and barely even then). If ten people walk down the street and ignore the starving guy on the sidewalk, it doesn’t matter (from a legal point of view). When he dies the next day, you can still go to work the next day and throw out your leftovers from lunch.
You can’t demand that someone give you sex for food, but you can prefer that the hot girl who is willing to have sex with you not starve to death.
A masseuse convinces you that it’s time for a rectal massage with his throbbing member. You accept, thinking this application of warm sphincter cream will release the toxins. Afterwards, while explaining the unusual thrusting massage to your closest friends, you realize you had intercourse.
In this case you consented to having your ass reamed by his cock, but you didn’t consent to intercourse. That’s rape.
A man is washed ashore on a desert island after his ship sinks. After a few months, he’s gotten pretty good at gathering seafood and has built a comfortable shelter, but he’s horny and bored out of his mind. Imagine his joy when he sees a beautiful actress wash ashore. Let’s see… oh, I don’t know, let’s say it’s Rachel Leigh Cook! She likes him, is glad to accept food from him, and soon they’re doing what comes naturally. This goes on for several weeks.
Then, one day, the guy bashfully asks her, “Um, Rachel, would you mind putting on this old shirt of mine so that you look more like a man?” Mystified, she agrees.
He asks, “And would you mind rubbing some dirt on your chin so that it looks like you have a beard?” She does it.
“And, um, would you mind talking in a much deeper voice, and saying your name is Bob?” Still puzzled, she does it.
The guy couldn’t be more pleased. He throws his arm around her shoulder and says, “Hi, Bob. Glad to meet you. I’ve been dying to tell someone: you’ll never believe who I’m sleeping with…!”
Yes, it’s called *depraved indifference *and it’s invoked against people who could help someone who is in extremis, but choose not to and the persoon suffers because of it.
Depraved indifference is when you do something where you don’t specifically intend for people to die, but your actions could pretty clearly kill someone. So, for instance, throwing heavy objects off the freeway overpass when you can’t see if anyone is below. You can’t see the cars, you aren’t intending to wreck a car, but anyone can see that you’re pretty likely cause a car wreck if you do that.
If you see a starving drunk sleeping in the gutter and walk on past without helping him, you have not committed a crime.
If you see a guy in a wrecked car, and run over and try to help him, and smash the window of his car to get him out, he can’t sue you for damaging his car because most states have enacted Good Samaritan laws. But those Good Samaritan laws don’t require you go run over and pull the guy out of the car, they just protect you from civil liability if you do.
Kitty Genovese case, which I still am too lazy to look back for its original posters. Gotta get my manners better.
\hijack of hijack\ Always thought your name began with “mange” like in the dogs. I always thought that that was a pretty gross user name, but chacun a son gout. I now realize it begins with “man.” Right?\end hijack\
FWIW, I can’t legally refuse to feed my dog here, whether he sleeps with me or not.
I think the term you’re looking for is “duty to rescue”. The concept does exist but, as the linked article notes, is not widely invoked in American or British law.
