It clarifies the degree of offense you incurred as a result of the scenario I provided based on your first post in this thread.
I feel mentally raped just from reading this thread.
I think that line is drawn too narrowly (though I agree that a line has to be drawn). Consider one case, based on actual facts of a legal case I read about in the US: a stranger sneaks into a woman’s room in the dark during a house party, deliberately pretending to be a woman’s husband; the woman, fooled, has sex with him (obviouly not a very observant person, but still). She consented to the sex, but would not have if she’d known he wasn’t her husband. Is he off the hook because she consented to sex?
Seems to me that sort of case is qualitatively different from that of a guy who gets sex by lying to a woman that he’ll love her forever, as in Paradise by the Dashboard Light.
Perhaps there ought to be a category for “rape by fraud”, but narrowly restricted to certain ususual cases like that above. That is, I believe, the approach taken in some US states.
If somebody shoves a penis into one of your orifices without your permission, yes that’s rape. And we really don’t need to bring transphobia into it.
Look, I grasp that it is apparently difficult for straight men with all their privilege to truly understand rape. A straight man doesn’t look at potential sex partners and have to think “but what if she overpowered me?” You don’t understand the fear and unequal power dynamic. When women fear rape, they don’t fear having their feelings hurt or having sex they’ll regret. They fear having their bodies violated, their humanity ignored. They fear the ultimate objectification as they are reduced from an autonomous human being into something to subdue, to hold down, to use.
If you want to get the briefest of glimmers of what that feels like, try this thought experiment: Write, in the first person, as though you are a woman. You are 5’4" and 130lbs. Not tiny, but certainly much smaller than the average man. You go out with a man, have a fantastic time and sleep together. In the morning you find out he’s married. How do you feel? At another point, you go out with a man, but he’s giving you a subtle bad feeling that this isn’t going to go well. He’s six feet tall and weighs 200lbs. When he starts getting physical and you inform him, no, you’re really not interested, he pins you down with his much larger body and has sex with you. Because he is so much larger and stronger than you, you also have to struggle with the decision of whether or not to fight back. Fight and you may be hurt worse. Don’t fight back and the guilt that you didn’t “try harder” may kill you later. How do you feel?
Tell me if you wrote about the same feelings in each scenario.
Not to throw a spanner in the works, but here’s one for you:
Tattooing a minor person (under 18) is now considered statutory rape.
So say that you are under 18 and you want to get a tattoo – you will have to lie to the tattooist, and successfully deceive them.
Now, imagine you are the tattooist. Would you feel raped?
[I think that this is a good example of it being a bad idea to erode the definition of “rape” by extending it to possibly objectionable acts which are nonetheless **not** rape.]
OK. That’s just stupid. What jurisdiction came up with that?
My point is that finding a way to use her through intellectual fraud is not that different than doing it through physical coercion. She has still been used as an object rather than a partner. The man has still gained what she did not wish to give, and she still has not received anything she wanted.
Its not violent rape, which I agree is usually worse, and therefore more criminally actionable. But it’s still rape. It is the use of another human being as an object.
That’s nonsense. By that definition, anyone who ever got screwed on a business deal has been raped.
Someone who convinces you to invest in their pyramid scam had defrauded you, but they have not robbed you. Someone who convinces you to have sex with them by lying has defrauded you, but they have not raped you.
In both cases, you gave something that you wouldn’t have if you had accurate information, but you did give it consensually, without coercion. Just because it was sex as opposed to money doesn’t make it rape.
Jeez, I’m apparently a rape survivor and had no idea. I should probably find a support group.
My position is that* precisely because* it was sex as opposed to money, it is rape.
No, she received sex - hopefully good sex, but, well, you know how things are - with someone she wanted to have sex with, as did he. She did wish to give it, that’s why it’s not rape. That she didn’t know the full circumstances is unfortunate, but those are the chances you take when you sleep with people you don’t know very well. (That sounded very judgmental - it isn’t supposed to imply any disapproval of sleeping with people you don’t know very well!) It doesn’t mean she didn’t consent - she did consent, on the basis of the information she had at the time.
Which is all any of us do when we have sex, make a decision based on the information we have at the time. If you have sex willingly with your husband, and you much later find out he was having an affair, were you raped? If you later find out that he was gambling your money and lost it, while he assured you that everything was fine financially, would you feel raped? (How about if he won, and you can now quit your job and move to the Bahamas? He was still lying to you, you still didn’t know the full circumstances while you were having sex, do you feel raped?)
No Splenda for you!
Your position is silly.
Words mean things, and rape means you were coerced or unable to give consent. Being lied to doesn’t mean you were unable to give consent, especially not in the age of Google.
Please note that no matter how much people might have liked to, no one ever charged Bernie Maddoff with theft. That’s because ‘theft’ means taking money without consent, whereas ‘fraud’ means getting people to give you money through deception.
Fraud is perfectly legally actionable. No need to insult people who’ve actually been raped.
not reading all, but his is one lop sided poll.
I went home with a good looking woman one night. We hit it off well at the bar, she was nice, and had a great body, and, most importantly, seemed interested in me. After we had sex, I figured what the heck, and asked her if she wanted to go out sometime.
I was her last fling before getting married the next weekend. So, no.
So not quite married. But close enough. Also, not rape. Instead, quite awesome! 
Stop misusing rape.
That’s right. Remember, everyone: Splenda is rape.
Anyone remember the thread where the one poster claimed that being told she wrong was like “being gang-raped?”
:eek: No way. To use the vernacular, cite?
That sounds insane. Though we had a poster say that criticizing her behavior could send her over the edge to suicide if she’d been depressed. So I guess there are people like that out there.
Yes, it was brightpenny