Ok just to clear the air I’m not talking about something like intentionally disguising yourself to have sex with someone, I’m talking about like the article bragging and concealing your racial heritage or other such misrepresentations.
On feminist blogs this issue has been getting a lot of discussion, is it rape if you lie or embellish facts about yourself? If you don’t reveal your Jamaican grandmother to a racist you want to score with, brag about adventures you’ve never had to score, conceal some embarassing fact.
A lot come down on the side of yes its rape, no matter how minor if you have ever lied or failed to disclose something to a sexual partner you are a rapist.
Here is the thing to me, if true this makes every single person on the planet a rapist and rape victim(unless they are a virgin) its that simple. Every child has a 99% chance to grow up to be a rapist, and a victim of rape by deception. How will we build a prison big enough for us all?
It is something to take seriously, but there’s such a thing as magnitude. I mean, a few embellishments or cool made up stories isn’t going to hurt anyone. Especially since 99% of the time these are one night stands anyway, most people don’t make a habit of excessive, easily verifiable (to someone as close to you as a SO would be) lies on dates they expect to be for a long term relationship.
That said, I think there’s a certain level of fraud that I think is worth complaining about, though in most cases fraud to such a high degree comes with other problems attached (i.e. pretending to be a police officer and threatening them isn’t just fraud, it’s also impersonating an officer and making threats).
Are you deceiving someone as to your identity, as in which particular person you are is relevant to consent (like pretending to be a womans husband)? Then yes.
Interesting question. Society has long sanctioned the use of force and taking advantage of the young. I think we have made some progress with the poor excuses for a person that use power and authority to gain sex. Creep used to be such a good word for men otherwise too lacking to attract a women. There was a time when Bill Clinton would have been ostracized as a creep.
Now how about those with the golden tongue? As mentioned, we don’t have the prison space.
Yeah, I remember that ridiculous Israeli story. No, it is not rape.
99% of people lie, exagerrate or hide information in order to get laid.
However, if you impersonate your twin brother in order to have sex with his girlfriend then… well, I don’t know if that’s technically rape but it’s all kinds of wrong and should be a crime.
Also, if a crime, this absolutely should not be gender-specific.
Since there is no force or threat involved, I cannot see how a man lying to sleep with a woman is any different from a woman lying to sleep with a man.
Plus, implicit in the adult competency to give valid consent is to exercise reasonable judgment as to whether to buy someone’s line. An element of *caveat emptor *is supposed to be part of the competent adult’s basic frame of reference.
Right - the specific example becomes a modality of sexual battery by coercion or duress in many jurisdictions, where the laws have explicitly included if the person has been led to believe the aggressor has authority or power to coerce.
FWIW around here that, directly impersonating a person’s sex partner, would be sexual battery under our law.
I think you need to distinguish between those who use their power and authority to coerce someone into having sex with them, and those whose power and authority make them more attractive than they otherwise would be.
Dunno if it’s quite that common, but yeah, anyone who isn’t watching out for it is hopelessly naive. Arguably it’s not just people who do it—don’t members of the animal kingdom puff themselves up to appear larger to potential mates?
This is stupid. It’s voluntary, and thus not rape under any circumstances. Even pretending to be a police officer doesn’t make it rape unless there is coercion involved. And then it wouldn’t be any different than the circumstances involving a real police officer. I think real victims of rape would be outraged that this is considered as related to the crime perpetrated against them.
Not even a little bit. Things like this degrade the experiences of those who truly suffered a violent crime.
This is why we have the concept of consent. Adults are supposed to be able to use their judgement to decide whether or not to have sex with a potential partner. In an age where you can check up on almost anything on your smartphone, I have little pity for someone who claims buyer’s remorse because they drunkenly believed some douchebag really was a race car driver. What I’m really hearing is " Oh I can’t believe I fell for that line! I need an excuse for my poor decision making skills."
I’m not sure how many people have read the article before commenting.
One’s mind immediately springs to the sleazy guy who charms a girl into bed by talking about how he winters in Switzerland and owns a car made of gold and diamonds. I am doubtful that such a guy should be jailed for his behavior.
But the article also talks about a guy who represented himself as his twin brother in order to have sex with his twin’s girlfriend in the middle of the night. There is also a mention of a guy who posed as a gynecologist and performed exams on two consenting women. These two incidents are very different in my mind than the Austin Powers-type swinger guy, and I think they both deserve jail time. So yes, in those cases I think rape by deception can indeed be a valid and useful law.
However, I’m not sure how one crafts a law that can fairly draw a distinction between two consenting adults falling for pick-up lines as compared to someone passing himself off as a doctor to perform cervical exams.
Yeah, but I don’t think that’s what the OP wanted to focus on. The OP said “Ok just to clear the air I’m not talking about something like intentionally disguising yourself to have sex with someone, I’m talking about like the article bragging and concealing your racial heritage or other such misrepresentations.”
Isn’t it already illegal to pose as a doctor and perform exams on people, with or without any kind of sexual component? Plus, the article mentions that many states have laws to deal with “unequal relationships” such as between a (real) doctor and a patient.
Here’s part of the article that’s disturbing
Yeah, writing a vague, ill-defined law with the idea that juries should interpret it on a case-by-case basis is a really good plan. :dubious:
There are certain thigns that are more serious than others. Pretending to be a virgin to get bareback action when in fact you could be passing on an STD, that sort of thing. Any time one party knows for certain that they would not be having sex if the otherknew the truth, yeah that’s rape. It’s not the same as violent rape, but it’s rape.
I do agree that we need new terminology. The term rape is much too broad, and we end up arguing to allow (or avoid naming) despicable acts in order to preserve the power of the word for the violent version. That’s not a valid argument for ignoring lesser crimes.
How about prosecuting it as a species of fraud and not “rape”?
I agree it isn’t “rape”, because that term is generally taken to mean something else, but in some cases deceiving someone into having sex with you may be sufficiently outrageous, depending on the facts, as to qualify for some sort of sanction. We sanction people for defrauding other people to get their money, why is it absurd to sanction people for defrauding other people into having sex with them?
The problem, as others have pointed out, is the slippery slope. The decision as to whether having sex with someone else is so very subjective. I presume that any actual law would have to set a pretty high threshold for what consitutes deception for purposes of punishment - something like ‘it has to be something that a reasonable person would on its face find obviously objectionable’. In short, some sort of objective test. I also assume actual convictions based on a properly-worded law would be extremely rare. Mere puffery about your background and achievements (“I’m a stock car racer!”) certainly ought not to qualify.
Not sure that I agree with that idea at all. “I had sex with someone I just met, and although they said they were vegan, they suggested eggs for breakfast! I would never willingly sleep with a meat eater!” is not anywhere near a rape experience, it’s just the sort of disappointment that’s a natural consequence of jumping into bed with someone that you don’t really know.
That doesn’t change depending on how dear the values in question are held in general. If this concept is applied to religious affiliation, as in the seminal case, how the heck are you supposed to judge that? Where do you draw the line? “She said she loved dogs! She’s a sex criminal!”