I personally don’t think it should be sexual assault, but what if the kisser would have been male?
Is that act sexual assault in some work places, but not others? Which ones?
How can this be discussed fruitfully without quoting laws? Lots of “seems like this” and “what if I did this?” posts.
This happened in Oslo, Norway, for those interested in discussing whether what occurred was sexual assault (or some other worded crime) in that place based on their laws.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Sexual Assault is “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.” Nothing in there about intent or arousal on the part of the assaulter or the victim.
Statute or case law for kissing being sexual contact?
But was that kiss of a “sexual” nature, and does intent help decide that?
The next sentence:
Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.
All more serious than what was basically a peck on the lips (when not watched in slow motion).
The tribunal considering the question can infer from the totality of the circumstances. Under most circumstances, I think the inference that a breast or groin grab is intended to arouse or gratify some prurient interest is a very strong one to make.
I think it’s sexual assault, but of the sort for which legal charges would be considered too much trouble to file.
Is that the legal distinction? If so, okay, but I think that’s dumb – grabbing crotches, or breasts, etc., should be sexual assault even if it’s meant for intimidation, or to get a laugh. Perhaps other reasons would be mitigating factors (i.e. “I was just trying to be funny”) in sentencing, or something like that, but that should still be sexual assault, in my non-lawyerly judgment.
They signed up to beat each other to a pulp within the rules of the sport, as officiated by an impartial referee. They consented to that. Neither consented to being kissed by the other person, and kissing isn’t part of the traditional stare-down, so there was no implied consent based on “how these things usually go” or similar.
It would be just as bad, in some sense, if one of them ambushed the other in an alleyway and proceeded to kick and punch their erstwhile opponent.
Hardly. And that’s the problem with the a-kiss-is-sexual-assault crowd. It cheapens the experiences of those who’ve actually been sexually assaulted.
Regardless of what a jury infers, lets assume that the fact is that the assaulter didn’t intend to nor did he receive pleasure from grabbing the victim’s genitals. Is it sexual assault?
According to some blurb on a DOJ website, you probably meant to say, as opposed to the implied “According to the DOJ’s summary of federal law.” Right?
I don’t agree that the summary from that page is a correct one, either legally or as a matter of general conversation. “Explicit consent,” is not always a feature of consensual sexual behavior; “implicit consent,” is often the type of consent that two people exchange. (“Explicit,” meaning fully revealed or expressed without any vagueness, implication, lack of clarity, or ambiguity).
“May I touch your left breast now?” is not the kind of talk that permeates hot and fully consensual makeout sessions. The owner of the breast in question may remove the hand and explicitly make a lack of consent clear, but I absolutely don’t agree that the absence of explicit consent makes that first move assault, assuming a heavy consensual kissing session is ongoing.
So, no, that’s a goofy and useless standard and it’s not the DOJ’s legal analytical response to the question.
Did the assaulter intend for any person to be aroused or gratified by the grab? The audience, if any? The victim?
If not, then no, but since it would be almost impossible to convince the tribunal of that, it’s a weak distinction.
It almost always is, because it’s so easy for the fact finder to infer that there WAS a sexual component to a crotch or breast grab.
“Just to give the audience a good show” would include causing some degree of sexual arousal in some portion of the audience, which was doubtless part of the reason for the kiss. This matches Bricker’s standard of “with the intent to sexually arouse or gratify someone”.
And it’s also clear that Braekhus considered this action unwelcome. So the only remaining question (assuming that mens rea is a condition of this crime, which I believe it is) is whether Lauren did or should have reasonably anticipated that the action would be unwelcome. I would contend that she should have and probably did reasonably anticipate this (in fact, the fact that it would be unwelcome was probably part of the reason why she did this), which would make it sexual assault.
Only if you mean for the person instigating the assault. Because sexual assault is rarely about gratifying the “object” or victim. The whole point is that you don’t care about the victim’s feelings, or you wouldn’t do it.
That said, even if the perpetrator didn’t get aroused by it, I think this is sexual assault. Kissing itself is not always sexual, but kissing someone who you are not in any relationship with is generally sexual in our culture. Plus the harm is a violation of self, not physical harm. And physical harm is usually the violation we mean when we say assault.
Now, legally, it’s possible that it fits under assault rather than sexual assault. Laws are like that. But that has as little bearing on my decision as it does when discussing what qualifies as rape instead of sexual assault. The law names things funny.
(This is NOT rape, BTW.)
Interesting.
Should she be charged?
I meant to say the words I wrote, no more and no less. If anything was “implied” it was implied by you. I’m sorry if my direct quote from the official U.S. Department of Justice website wasn’t up to your high standards but, then again, I thought we were posting on a message board, not bringing a case before The Court.
So you do mean you think the assaulter is trying to arouse people. That’s dumb. That turns sexual assault on its head, and makes a lot of activities not sexual assault when they actually are.
If someone fondles a woman’s boobs, they’re doing it for their own sexual gratification. They don’t care one bit about what the other person feels. By your definition, that would not be sexual assault. Yay, Japan’s sexual assault problem on trains is solved!
I mean, they do it for themselves, clearly. If they cared what the other person feels, they wouldn’t do something that would make them feel so awful.