The question comes from the OP. The problem is that a lot of people don’t seem to want to answer that question, but want to invent thir own questions instead.
Well, in the other thread, it was posited that a guy who commits non violent date rape is less likely to be a bad father. I’m just not sure what a non violent date rape is, but I don’t think “She changed her mind the next day” is an example of rape at all. I’m not sure what this mythical non violent date rape even is.
This is more ambiguous, but I think you are leaving out the part where she’s too drunk to move and where she’s basically vomited on herself. I don’t know if it’s automatically rape (I mean, it is just a movie and one that I haven’t even seen), but it’s definitely creepy.
Actively telling the assailant to stop does not mean rape in every jurisdiction (I’m looking at you, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania). Under the old common law standard, both resistance and absence of consent were required. That changed in many jurisdictions to force (either actual or threatened) and absence of consent. PA, in Commonwealth v. Berkowitz, 641 A.2d 1161 (Pa. 1994) ‘backdoored’ in the resistance requirement by finding that a girl was not raped when she was in a locked room, with her boy friend’s room mate on top of her penetrating her, and she said “no” throughout the encounter. The court found there was no force used, nor threatened.
New Jersey, on the other hand, has the same requirement, but the courts have defined the act of penetration itself as satisfying the force requirement. See in the Interest of M.T.S., 609 A.2d 1266 (N.J. 1992).
Apologies if the cases are out of date and bad law now. This was the case 5 or 6 years ago…
Can you quote that please? I was pretty active on that thread and read most if not all of it, and don’t recall anything of the sort. Less likely to be a bad father than whom? Did they actually say that a violent rapist would be a better father than a non-rapist or a non-violent rapist?
In fact I remember that thread whose topic is whether a ‘rapist’ should have paternal rates having reached a consensus from that get-go that forcible, violent, rape should keep the father from having rights, but that other cases of rape need to be looked at on a case by case basis.
Pretty much exactly what is being said here, by all but a couple…you cannot or should not make blanket statements that all rapes are equal nor can you or should you claim that all “rapists” are equal. Each case must be looked at on its own merits, on a case by case basis.
And what on earth does that have to do with the topic in this thread?
Being a father, whether one should have paternal rights terminated, and whether disagreeable personality traits make on a “bad father” or “unfit parent” is way beyond the scope of “which rape is worse”.
She was not too drunk to move. Vomiting is not comatose, and she was telling the rapists not to stop. It doesn’t matter, I am not using a movie as a cite or anything; it was just an example because it was widely considered date-rape. You really shouldn’t pass judgment on whether it was creepy, whether it was rape, whether it was anything at all without seeing it.
Again, the movie was not a cite, it was a suggestion. But if you want to bring the other thread into things it was brought up that one poster considered it rape and felt a man was a rapists and/or bad father if he did not pull out (or fast enough) once a woman said no (mid-coitus). Where is the violence there?
Again it does not matter as I think this thread has run its course. You question was “is one rape worse than another” and as many have responded, it is unanswerable as written. Rape is a bad, bad thing. But not all rapes are the same, not all rapes are as traumatic, not all rapes are violent, not all rapes are equally criminal…until that basic understanding is …well…understood…it is just a bunch of hand waving and dramatics
Going back a bit, I know I am responding out of order, but I’d also like to address:
The first is not date rape, never was, was never used as an example. There are times that “changed my mind” is all that it takes to be date rape, but there are other circumstances that must go along with that. Changing one’s mind alone is never, was never, will never be rape. You are pulling arguments out of the air that were never presented, then arguing against them. That is a poor tactic. I also am not aware of any mythical non-violent rapes but I can give examples of very real ones.
You may claim something doesn’t exist, you may claim that every rape must meet your specifications before the word can be used, but you are so very wrong. Tacking the word “mythical” proves nothing other than your own ignorance, especially after being presented with examples.
I’m guessing that what people are calling “non violent date rape” is actually referring to situations where it is unclear if it was rape at all.
In situations involving alcohol, we may not know exactly how drunk each party was, or how drunk each party presented themself as. It isn’t that taking advantage of a drunk woman is better than other types of rape… it is just harder to prove. So people say “non violent rape” or “accidental rape” when really it means they aren’t sure it was rape at all. In reality, it either was rape, or it wasn’t. But if you aren’t sure, or if you don’t think it was rape but others do, you don’t know what to call it, and thus you get weird contradictory terms like non violent rape.
No. Getting raped by someone you’ve put trust in is different from getting raped by someone you have not trusted obviously. Neither of these men would father my child. Morally he’s worse, he’s abused a position of trust that’s been extended to him.
The movie was Observe and Protect. not “To serve and Protect,” and the scene did not show a “date rape”, it showed Seth Rogan having sex with Anna Faris, who has been established as being drunk. Rogan looks down and sees that her eyes are closed, and that she has apparently passed out. He stops. She then opens her eyes and says, “why are you stopping motherfucker?”
This clearly establishes consent (at least within the context of the movie reality), so, by definition, it wasn’t rape, but Rogan is supposed to be an unstable and delusional character anyway, not a sympathetic hero.
My best guess is that “non violent rape” is supposed to mean a rape where there was no violence in addition to the rape – that is, the victim wasn’t beaten, choked, stabbed, etc., in the course of the rape. But it’s a stupid and really rather offensive phrase because it suggests that rape in and of itself is not an act of violence. I don’t think any reasonable definition of “violence” could exclude rape, since rape is a physical act that involves the use of force by the rapist against the victim, causes harm to the victim, and occurs against the victim’s will. Some rapes can be more violent than others because the rapist could perform other violent acts along with the rape, but there can’t be any such thing as a rape that isn’t violent at ALL.
ETA: I haven’t seen the 2009 movie that’s been mentioned here, but the actual title is Observe and Report.
My apologies for getting the title wrong. I did not check the DVD before posting, but I do have it and have seen it. It was established that the character was drunk…far too drunk to give meaningful consent.
That is why there was such public outcry and Anna Faris herself describing it as “the date-rape scene”. That was exactly my point. In real life it would have been “date-rape” and it would have (or could have) been prosecuted as such and the rapist could have gotten at least two years in prison and registration as a sex offender as happened in a case described here: http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index.cfm/fa/viewstory/story_ID/5332
Now you can argue that that article, which was using the case I described as an example in a lecture, and does not include the assailant’s nor the victims full names does not prove anything or even that it is fictional altogether because it doesn’t include any verifiable information, you can also claim that “Todd” was likely prosecuted under the UCMJ which has different standards than civilian law or you can argue that rape by intoxication doesn’t exist at all…you can argue anything you want, but being too drunk to give meaningful consent is considered rape. The level of impairment does not have to be “passed out” in order to qualify, and the level of impairment does not have any written standard. We are just expected to know when someone is too drunk to consent- and that is very subjective. This case was indeed a rape, as it was found to be in a criminal proceeding (whether you or I agree with the ruling) and there was no violence. Thus non-violent rape is possible, and whether it is perpetrated by a stranger or an acquaintance or a lover or a friend, it is not as “bad” or as “wrong” as a forcible and/or violent rape would be.
But really this whole thread boils down to “is not!” “is too!”. So whether or not you agree with the laws, whether or not you agree with the definitions, the simple fact remains that rape does exist in contexts without violence, the lack of violence does not make it it any less “rape” nor does it make it less traumatic for the victim in every circumstance, but it does mitigate the crime to an extent.
Not all rapes are the same. Not all rapists are the same. Each case must be looked at individually before it can be said with any level of certainty that one is more wrong, or worse than another.
This is why we have trials- not only to ascertain that a crime has been committed, but to judge the level of the offense and the appropriate punishment. If all rapes were the same then a statutory rapist, a date rapist (which is not a legal term at all) and a violent rapist would all get the same sentence without needing a trial at all. Our system of justice recognizes a difference in severity of crimes, and I think we should too.
ETA: The movie is Observe and Report so I guess we both got the title wrong!
The scene in the movie wasn’t rape,a nd would not have been prosecuted as such.
All rape is rape. All rapists are rapists. There is no such thing as “non-violent rape.”
I think you are missing the point I believe is being made. The statement “all rapes are violent rapes” is a statement that the very act of penetration absent consent is a violent one. It’s a view that is held to be the legal standard in at least some jurisdictions, as I mentioned above.
Ummmm…okay then. I guess you have decreed it and so shall it be.
But you are wrong.
I disagree with that notion. If the penetration itself is the violent act then consensual sex would, by that definition, be violent.
Do you have a cite that all rapes are considered to be violent crimes (I am including all “lack of consent” rapes- statutory rape and rape due to intoxication in particular)? Because I found no opinion on the level of violence in any statutes that I have read.
This is what I quoted in the OP:
Not that he would be a great dad, no, but that he can’t automatically be written off the same way as a stranger rapist.
I’m saying that rape is rape, as the others have pointed out, and that even if you aren’t putting a gun to someone’s head, the act of forcible penetration is a violent act.
Well, I didn’t see the whole movie but I saw a short ten second clip of it. The guy having sex with a woman who seemed to be passing out mid way through and who had vomited on herself isn’t admittedly necessarily rape, but I think I can say I find it sleazy without saying it’s illegal. Neither here nor there as you yourself said, though.
Not pulling out fast enough isn’t necessarily rape–though again, it depends on what fast enough means. Not pulling out at all, though–I see that as violent, too. Penetration when you don’t want it can be painful, and even if not, once the woman has withdrawn consent, he’s having intercourse with her against her will
So why are we even discussing “changed her mind” as rape? It doesn’t belong here at all, since it isn’t rape by definition.
This is asinine.
I haven’t said all rapes are violent. I was trying to explain what you seem to be missing in other people’s arguments, and I apologize for putting words in people’s mouths if I have misinterpreted their views.
The level of consent involved is important to whether an act is violent. If I stick a scalpel into your side on the street, it is a violent act. If a doctor does the same to you after informed consent in an operating theater to remove your appendix, it is not a violent act.
And a lot of jurisdictions agree with you that non-consensual penetration is not by definition forceful. But as I said, others don’t. Saying “all rape is violent” to mean no more than “non-consensual penetration is a forceful act” is hardly out there, legally speaking at least.
Unwanted penetration is inherently violent. Not consensual penetration.
Thank you for playing, but you can’t really have it both ways. If penetration alone is always violent, then it is always violent with or without consent.
I didn’t realize “this is asinine” was considered a proper rebuttal. Now that I see that it is, I shall use it in future debates. Ignorance fought, thank you.
Penetration WITHOUT CONSENT is always violent. The lack of consent is what MAKES it violent. Your lack of ability to appreciate and comprehend the inherent sanctity of another person’s body is coming off a little creepy. Just FYI.
Care to respond to the actual rebuttal then, about scalpels and doctors?