LOL – I like the recent points made. It makes me realize that (in the hypothetical) I better not spill the beans, either before or after, to avoid making myself a target!
But it also makes me think of something else – is it possible that word might never get out beyond conspiracy-theory mutterings? Most people don’t try to sexually assault anyone. And of those leftover that do, what would they say? “Hey, I’m getting nauseated all the time when I try to ra—… I mean, I’m getting nauseated sometimes for no reason at all!” Some might go to the doctor, but what could they report? They wouldn’t actually feel any nausea except during the assault attempts themselves. Once they’re overcome by nausea, and they stop trying to do it, it stops. If they try again, it comes back. They’d very quickly learn the association between the acts… but who would they tell? Other rapists, perhaps. But no one else, I think.
So I actually think it’s possible that the only thing the wider world would notice is a very significant drop in reports of sexual assault. Perhaps some of the would-be victims will report that their attacker suddenly dropped to the ground, but I’m not sure how quickly that would be put together by investigators, especially once the attackers realize that their attacks are futile (and thus they stop even trying).
Well, I would expect that in some US prisons, for example, the fact that a change had occurred would become widely known fairly quickly. Also, perhaps, certain fraternities. Anecdotes of bizarrely failed rape attempts would probably be common knowledge right off the bat, and the crime statistics would be unmistakable fairly soon.
I could see a paranoia rising among men that any sexual thought will be punished with nausea. There’s already enough guilt for sexual thoughts provided by religious pressure, and an additional real consequence would lead to severe mental problems. Besides, any sort of instinct for sexual assault might be repressed, but it wouldn’t be eliminated. It might make men more angry and frustrated in general, and the most aggressive of them would channel their rage through violence.
Some women could use sexual nausea as a weapon. Seduce a guy, provoke him to the point of aggression, make him sick, and tell police “See the vomit? Proof he tried to rape me.”
In addition, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that certain men would replace their sexual aggression with another type of damaging sexual practice, such as contracting a social disease and spreading it to as many sexual partners as possible.
I have little doubt it would make some rapists “more angry and frustrated in general”, but it seems very unlikely to me that that would result in anything close to as much violence as compared to all the sexual violence the ‘rule’ would prevent.
The ‘rule’ can read intentions and consent and wouldn’t allow this. There’d be no way for a would-be victim to “provoke” feelings of nausea under this rule.
That’s possible. Though the rule could be crafted such that even that would be prevented.
Question for the OP: Does “any time someone tries to sexually abuse/assault another person, no matter the particulars” include statutory rape? It’d pretty much have to, if you want to prevent child molestation, but how would the cutoff age be determined?
Deliberately spreading VD might be parsed as sexual assault by this divine mechanism.
The phrasing of the OP seems to base the effect on intent - it only triggers if they believe the action they are attempting is “to sexually abuse/assault another person.” If they honestly believe that their target is not really a person then they would suffer no ill effect, whether or not the target is in reality a person.
Thus it would not work on a psychotic who does not believe other people are real.
Worst case scenario would be a group(perhaps a cult) that claims another group is subhuman- possibly by race but not necessarily. With a starting core of true believers, they could then use rape as a ‘proof’ that a raped member of the outgroup was never really a person at all, and thus ‘confirm’ and spread the belief that the outgroup is subhuman.
Not just intent, but consent (which is ultimately more important). An idiot frat boy who thinks the girl really wants it would still be struck by nausea if she didn’t actually want him to touch her. So the ‘rule’ knows and takes into account the mind state of both the potential assaulter and assaultee.
I’ll assume the ‘rule’ knows whether or not someone is truly capable of consent – thus requiring a fully mature understanding of sex and intimacy, including the potential consequences (so, yes, ‘taking advantage’ of a feeble-minded person could cause the nausea, depending on the circumstances). There might be some apparent grey areas to observers, but the ‘rule’ would know, with complete accuracy, whether this is so or not.
Since you have godlike powers why don’t you just take away the desire to engage in non-consensual sex in the first place? As already mentioned, if people suffer as a result of a sexual desire they may become angry and abusive in a non-sexual way.
That’d be another way to do it, but I’d have real moral trouble with the idea of altering thoughts – IMO, thoughts on their own are never morally bad (or good); it’s only actions that can be bad or good.
I don’t see how. The main purpose of sexual aggression is to establish dominance over the victim. If the aggressor doesn’t get horny, he uses fists instead.
I thought the rule suppressed violence? There’s no violent intent on the part of the accuser, and if you were to expand the rule to include any sort of harmful intent, you’d have a lot of cases to clarify. No one solid rule can cover all bases.
Again, this isn’t sounding like a fast and simple rule. The more repercussions you try to cover, the more provisions you have to add. Plus, humans will be asking why you’re not extending the same rule to the rest of the animal kingdom. There’s rape among non-humans too.
That’s not how I understand it. Rapists want to rape – they don’t want general or vague assertions of dominance – they want rape. Some of them might react violently, but every single one? Especially when victims would then have a clear chance to escape (while the attacker is incapacitated by nausea)? I seriously doubt that would result in more violence. But if you feel differently, fine – it’s not like I can prove it either way.
One relatively simple rule can cover all bases – any time someone acts in a sexual or intimate way which is not desired (and thus not consented to) by the other party (anything from trying to kiss to grabbing a boob to jumping out from the bushes and grabbing to rape), they will experience nausea, which will continue until the would-be assaulter/attacker/groper/rapist stops trying to assault/attack/grope/rape. Even if they think the victim wants it. Consent is much more important than intent, but intent will matter in the very rare cases in which someone might be grabbed for their own safety (like to avoid a car).
So if you’re on a date and you kiss (not lean in for a kiss and stop to make sure they want a kiss, but actually kiss regardless of the actions and desires of the other party), and your date doesn’t want to kiss, you’ll feel some nausea. If you grab their private parts without their consent, you’ll feel nausea. And so on. It makes the rule a tiny bit more complicated, but I’ll add a sliding scale such that the worst nausea goes with rape, and lesser nausea for lesser violations of consent.
Violating someone’s consent with regards to sex and intimacy will literally be impossible due to this rule.
Let’s suppose that your divine power isn’t totally supernatural, and it works by making a change in the genetic code of men, so they feel debilitating nausea.
Generations pass, and you the divine being have long ago gotten bored and left. Random mutations break this mechanism in some men.
Those men, able to rape without consequences, use it so they have more children than men who are not able to do it.
A few more generations pass. Someone who is a descendant of a man who only got his mother pregnant from a rape, commits a rape himself.
But now we have genetic screening and can actually show why the defendant committed the crime. He was predisposed to it from birth.
Do we punish him? If we punish him, do we torture him? Try to treat him? Kill him? Should we feel sympathy?
The fucked up thing is, if published numbers on the prevalence of rape are remotely accurate (1/3 of women get raped eventually, half of all men admit they would do it if there were no chance of getting caught), that’s basically the world we live in. It is entirely possible that men are genetically predisposed to commit rapes (and murders and other serious crimes) from birth, and they don’t really “choose” in the kind of “free will” sense we implicitly assume. It could be the difference between a man who commits the crime and who doesn’t might just be environment.
I think this is a different discussion. But for a quick answer, even if genetics could possibly play a role, that’s no defense, IMO. Someone who has a desire to rape can still decide not to rape. At best, that might be a mitigating factor, but people still have control over whether they attack and rape someone else or not, whatever their desires.
Unfortunately, the best evidence says that the brain simply follows the laws of physics. If you are born with the wrong genes, and you are exposed to the wrong environment, then under some stimuli, you will commit a crime. There is no actual evidence to suggest free will even exists.
How would the rule handle a situation where a couple are having sex then one of them decides it’s a bad idea and wants to stop? Does the other partner immediately start vomiting? Do they have to be told first?
Also, how about people using positions of power to ‘convince’ someone to sleep with them? The underling would consent but only under some duress/promise of reward.
The rule could result in lower employment for hotties since bosses would want to avoid any temptation to slap a butt.
Also, people with stomach bugs may get mistaken for sexual predators and get beaten up.