But this line of the argument is being disingenuous. Rape of someone incapacitated (comatose, passed out, etc.,) IS forcible rape and is violent. There is no question. It is identical and the very same crime as raping a stranger.
However the law says that a woman who is not “incapacitated” yet still under the influence, “tipsy” let’s say…cannot legally consent to sex. Therefore consensual sex with that tipsy woman is rape. If charges are pressed, and if the case were proven, then it would be a misdemeanor offense not at all the same as a forcible rape (first degree sexual assault/felony).
Therefore it is indeed a “rape” but is nonviolent, and a world away from forcible rape, stranger rape or whatever you want to call the violent kind.
To equate the two does a huge disservice to both the victims of forcible rape and the “rapists” who are victims of circumstance.
Ambiguity according to whom? That is where the problem lies. I may be drunk, but saying “yes, yes, yes, do me, you big stud” and you may not realize that I am drunk. But when I wake up the next morning realizing what has happened, I could very well press charges (and have them stick) that I was raped.
There doesn’t seem to be any ambiguity, but a rape still occurred, even if you didn’t mean to. And it was a rape that was non-violent.
Does it? I’ve seen people claim this on here a number of times, but the law in my state doesn’t say any such thing. The relevant portion of the law defines rape as sexual intercourse that occurs “through the use of the complaining witness’s mental incapacity or physical helplessness”. There’s nothing in there about people who’ve had a couple of drinks but aren’t incapacitated.
*Not where I live it isn’t. Can you cite a law in some other place where consensual sex with an adult woman who is not mentally incapacitated or physically helpless is defined as rape?
According to me. If I’m not positive, the answer is no.
And, once again, there is no statute that says it’s rape to have sex with a woman who is over the legal limit, but is still able to consent. This is not a law. You are mistaken.
This whole ambiguity thing has me confused, too. It seems like some people desperately want to believe that rape doesn’t really happen, that it’s just a bunch of deluded women convinced that rape has happened when it really hasn’t. I just think that’s a lot of wishful thinking. It would be nice if rape was this rare thing and that what we think of is rape is just one big misunderstanding, but that’s not the reality.
It is quite possible that I am mistaken, but I have seen it prosecuted. It is also being routinely taught to our teenagers. CitePseudo-CiteCiteCiteCite
While I can find many state statutes that include “intoxication” as a rape, they do not specify that the victim must be entirely incapacitated to the point of being passed out or whatever, they all are based on “beyond giving meaningful consent”. So the line would be when is that? Is it over the legal limit or is it passed out?
I cannot find any online source for the case that I know that was prosecuted, so you may disregard it if you choose, but the woman in question was not sober, but not at all comatose and there was no force used (admitted by both victim and perpetrator) yet he was convicted of a misdemeanor sexual assault (“date-rape”).
There was also the scene in the movie To Serve and Protect which received much public outcry due to the “date rape” it portrayed where the “victim” was actively telling the “rapist” not to stop.
It may not be worded exactly as such in state statutes (or it may…I don’t know) but it is widely believed, taught and followed up on as such.
This too is disingenuous. No one, no one, not a single person has made any claims that rape hasn’t happened or that it doesn’t happen as often as it does. And to call any of us who don’t believe as you do deluded is insulting.
The only thing being suggested is that degrees of rape (of which there are several) are not equal. That’s why there are various degrees. They are all bad, they are all wrong, they are all criminal. Some are more bad, more wrong and more criminal is all.
Cite Cite Cite
To say that rape is rape and that all rapes are the same is just wrong.
It is not prosecuted as such. It is not a law, and your cites express opinions, not legalities.
“Misdemeanor sexual assault” is not rape.
Just because a woman is not drunk to the point of unconsciousness, does not mean she is able to give consent, but having sex with a woman who is merely “tipsy” is not prosecuted as rape. You are wrong.
If you have any doubts – if you are anything but crystal clear that lucid consent has been given – then interpret that as a no, and you won’t have to worry about it.
My cites were showing that it is being taught to our teenagers, not the legalities.
Then what it is it? Because this cite is pretty clear that it is a degree of “rape” and in fact is under the definitions of rape, at least according to that particular law firm, which could be wrong.
I used “tipsy” because you were claiming intoxication meant incapacitated. I was pretty clear, and I still mean “drunk”. Not passed out, but not sober.
But as in the first set of cites that you claim don’t pertain, it is clearly being taught to our teenage (boys mostly) that even if you do not know she is intoxicated, it is still rape. Maybe not legally, always, and maybe the statutes are not clear on what level of intoxication is must be, but it does get prosecuted. I have no online cites right now, so you don’t have to believe that, it doesn’t really change my point.
To bring this back to the original topic, rapes of this nature, and statutory rapes in certain circumstances (not always) are far less heinous than any forcible rape (whether the assailant is known or a stranger).
We can go 'round and 'round about what constitutes statutory rape, what constitutes date rape, etc. but that is all a straw-man. The simple fact of the matter (and legally too) is that there are rapes that are worse than other rapes. Not all rapes are violent (statutory rape springs instantly to mind too) and not all rapes are equal either in their “wrongness” nor in the eyes of the law.
Not all sexual assault is rape but all rape is sexual assault. You don’t seem to understand that. I hate using wikipedia as a cite, but here: Rape - Wikipedia
Rape is always sexual assault, and rape comes in various degrees (just like other sexual assaults do).
In Arizona, the definition of Sexual Assault is actually closer to most people’s definition of “rape” that I’ve seen in this thread, lower forms of sexual assault are classified as Sexual Abuse as far as I can tell. (Arizona doesn’t have anything that explicitly defines “rape” that I can find, so that’s probably why)
Throughout this post, any bolding in a quote box is mine.
Abuse:
Which is more or less the definitions people have been giving of rape in this thread.
As such, to counter the arguments of being merely intoxicated and not incapacitated counting as rape legally, here’s the definition of “without consent”
From searching around, “impaired” as it pertains to alcohol seems to be .08 BAC in Arizona, but I’m having trouble finding anything that’s not with DUIs when it comes to alcohol. Both use the terminology impaired so it’s probably similar. Either way, since it says “impaired” it’s almost certainly not pass-out drunk in any case. Note that I have no frame of reference for different BACs, so that may very well be very noticeably drunk, in which case I’ll step out. Just thought I’d provide something that might help.
If your visitor swipes your purse on their way out that’s larceny. If a stranger grabs it while you’re walking on the street, that’s theft. Either way you no longer have your wallet. What’s worse, not having your wallet, or not having your wallet?
Actually, this is kind of a bad road to go down argument wise. The direction jurisdictions (disclaimer - in the US) are going is to remove rape from the statute books and have different graduations of sexual assault. This seems to be because rape carries with it huge amounts of common law baggage that has made effective criminalization tough.
Well yeah, there’s no doubting that. But are you really saying that picking up an unattended purse is the same crime as bashing someone over the head with a crowbar and rifling through their pockets?
After all, at the end, you still don’t have your purse right?
But that is not even what this thread was about, what I was taking it to mean (or trying to find a solution to) was those more genuine or borderline cases why the guy quite honestly thought he had consent.
So a better scenario might be…is accidentally picking up the wrong briefcase and carrying it home the same crime as violently grabbing a briefcase from a passing pedestrian? THe end effect is the same after all.
As I posted in the OP, I’m not talking about these cases that you seem to think are so common where a woman changes her mind the next day. Or accidental rape, whatever that is.
I’m talking about a scenario where a woman is forced to have sex by someone she knows versus by a stranger.
Obviously there are a lot of variables. But if a guy holds you down and forces you to have intercourse with him and you know him/dated him, is he morally any better a person than the stranger who grabs a woman? Is he likely to be a better father? Is what he did more defensible?
If the question is ‘all things being equal … is a rape by a stranger worse than one where the victim knows the perp?’ I think the answer is “no”. Arguably, the latter may be worse.
OTOH, if the question is ‘is the average stranger rape worse than the average rape where the victim knows the perp?’, I’d say most probably the answer would be “yes” - because in general one associates the former with a higher degree of violence.
In short, they are both rapists, but the stranger-rapist is more likely to also be violent, in the hold-a-knife-to-the-neck sense. This makes them on average even less suitable for parental responsibilities.
If we are just talking about the better father part, I would think an acquaintance rapist might make a worse father than a stranger rapist. I would think it far more likely that an attitude of entitlement to sex if you paid for dinner be passed on from a father to a son than an attitude of walk out and assault the first woman you see.