I think we all got it. It’s not shoplifting, and the question equates a prostitute with a piece of property.
More akin to holding a gun on a plumber while he fixes your sink.
Or how attacking a boxer on the street is still assault.
and
No, there is a distinction that you are both missing. If you agree with someone that they will provide a service and then they provide the service but you don’t pay, that is not stealing. They have a civil claim against you for payment of a debt ie for the fee that you don’t pay. It is a civil not criminal matter. It is not stealing.
Stealing is where you take something from someone without their permission with intent to permanently deprive them of it.
Again, ignoring the massive moral problem to which **Marley23 **(and numerous others) rightly allude, consensual sex with a prostitute on the basis that you will pay, then not paying, is not equivalent to stealing or shoplifting. Ignoring the fact that the agreement may be void for illegality in many jurisdictions, what the prostitute would have is an entitlement to sue you for the fee, and a criminal charge would not lie. The answer to the question in the OP is “no” for this and any number of other reasons.
fair enough. I respect that
How does it equate a prostitute with a piece of property? She can’t legally be bought and sold; no one can hold title to her; she can’t be transported against her will; and she can’t be used a collateral to secure a loan. If you are thinking in terms of how comments made in this thread may be objectifying prostitutes, I would say that if you decide to put your body on the market for people to use as an object and do with what they will in order to satisfy their sexual urges, then being objectified pretty much goes with the territory.
Because shoplifting has to do with property, objects. Forcing someone else to perform a service (and even that’s a stretch) is not considered shoplifting.
There used to be an occasional problem in Thailand with prostitutes getting stiffed (no pun intended) (well, okay, I admit it’s intended) by a customer who claimed not to have any baht, dollars or pounds on him, but here, take a few thousand Italian lira or some other obscure Western currency. The girl would think she’d made out like a bandit until discovering she’d just been paid a couple of bucks after the customer was long gone. That problem largely disappeared with the widespread adoption of the euro. The girls know euros.
A prostitute provides a service. Everything else you said is discriminatory.
No, it’s an observation. I merely described how people tend to think. I said nothing of my own views on the subject.
Then I would suggest you avoid phrases like "I would say that if… "
Like the OP said, the stealing theory is based on the idea that when you rape a prostitute, you’re taking something from her. But you can’t take sex from a person, and the fact that the victim is a prostitute is not implied consent that reduces the crime to petty theft.
I’m talking about the premise of the question, not the comments or word choices.* I understand people are going to look at prostitutes as sex objects. But a sex object is the object of sexual desire - still a person and not a thing.
*Although the OP did also imply the prostitute belongs to her pimp in another post.
In Australia - and specifically New South Wales, where prostitution is legal, it would not be shoplifting.
Firstly, sex is not a thing capable of being stolen (although body parts can be, Kelly (1999) QB 621; [1998] 3 All ER 741). Property capable of being stolen is a thing that has value, no matter how slight. Something nebulous, like data or sex or services of any kind, are not things. Some of these things have specifics written into the Crimes Act (NSW) 1900 to make the taking of them theft.
It would be sexual assault, if it was against her will.
If it was a case of consensual sex, it could still, in my opinion be sexual assault - there are cases where sex was obtained by false pretenses that have been ruled sexual assault: Papadimitropoulos (1957) 98 CLR 249. In this case, the defendant told his victim that they were legally married and tricked her into having consensual sex with him. This could be (although a jury would have to decide) analougus to telling a prostitute you would pay her if she had sex with you, then refusing. In other words, in both cases the sex was obtained by a trick.
If I am wrong, and it is not sexual assault, then it would be Obtaining by False Pretenses, which legislates the common law crime of Larceny by Trick in the Crimes Act (NSW), ss 192B-192H, specificaly 192G:
CRIMES ACT 1900 - SECT 192G
Intention to defraud by false or misleading statement
192G Intention to defraud by false or misleading statement
A person who dishonestly makes or publishes, or concurs in making or publishing, any statement (whether or not in writing) that is false or misleading in a material particular with the intention of:
(a) obtaining property belonging to another, or
(b) obtaining a financial advantage or causing a financial disadvantage,
is guilty of an offence.
There are no cases to test this as this is new law in NSW from last year, but I believe that (b) could be read to mean that the prostitute suffers a financial disadvantage, having provided her services on belief of a false or misleading statement.
(IANAL…yet. I did come second in my Criminal Law class last semester, if that means anything at all.)
I’m confused about the situation that the OP is positing. Is it:
-
You have sex with a prostitute and then skip out on the bill OR
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You drag her into the back alley, force sex on her, and walk away?
The word he used was “rape”-I’m assuming he meant just that…and for that reason I would appreciate it if people wouldn’t joke about it.
No, but if someone tries to hire you to mow his lawn, you refuse, and he forces you to do so at gunpoint, that’s slavery.
Just to make clear, the whole idea is abhorrent. My answer was purely factual/legal opinion.
I wasn’t trying to imply I thought it was funny, or that the “joke” amused me in any way.
Of course. My comment was directed at those who were telling the “jokes”.
In the Papadimitropoulos case it was found that no rape had occurred, because the fraud was not as to the nature of the act. (An example of “fraud as to the nature of the act” was in R v Williams where the girl was told that intercourse was a medical procedure.) The court agreed that the accused could hypothetically be guilty of a crime of procuring through fraud, but this crime did not exist in the part of Australia where the offence took place.
The issue of stiffing a prostitute was dealt with in R v Linekar where it was also held not to be rape, because consent had been given to the sexual act itself.
And some of the posts in this thread are disgusting.
Agree, there’s some nasty stuff here.
Thank you for your corrections, I appreciate it.
Do you think the section of the Crimes Act quoted might apply?
Also I was not familiar with the Linekar case, thanks for bringing it up.