# Sexual assault was your funniest moment??? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 10, 2007, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436 "2007-01-10T18:24:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/181 "2007-01-11T16:59:55Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] I did read the relevant statutes, which is why I put the qualifying word “if” in my statement. [/QUOTE] . . . and IF “deviate sexual intercourse” were somehow a subset of wire fraud, well then, we have him on that too. bonus. You were right earlier, you’re worth the peremptory strike on voire dire. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/182 "2007-01-11T17:09:15Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] You can’t read either–I said, quite clearly, that I understood this NOT to be rape. It is SIMILIAR to rape in that it is done out of hostility and a desire to humiliate and frighten the victim. Surely you can understand that much? I am fairly contemptous of lawyers in general and the law as well–to argue whether this is “winnable” in terms of sexual assault turns the whole fucking thing into some contest. Look at what happened here. Ask yourself if you would want that to happen to yourself or a woman close to you. M position on this is that it SHOULD be tried as **sexual assault, and it if cannot be (and that boggles my mind-no wonder rape** is under-reported if shit like this has little hope of being successfully prosecuted)–then shame on our judicial and legislative systems. As **DianaG** says, we are in very little danger of considering “every obnoxious act of exposing yourself” to be sexual assault. What is this generational bullshit? I am 44-I’m not in my dotage. If this is “normal” Greek behavior-then that system needs an overhaul, stat. If this is “normal” college age behavior (and some have come here to say it is NOT), just a “prank”, don’t be a “ninny” about this–be cool and suck it up and laugh–that is truly sick. Two of my kids will be in college soon. Apparently I have to warn them about complete assholes like these shinging examples of young manhood–they do their generation proud. I don’t think there’s a gender split. I think there are some males here who think it is disgusting and should be followed up on. There is probably at least one female here who thinks it’s no big deal or possible a great new party game-who the hells knows. But to those “men” and “women” who think this is a bunch of laughs, they are wrong–and have a fucked up view of what is acceptable behavior and how they should treat other people. [/QUOTE] (emphasis mine) I can read fine lady. I can even find you equating it with rape in this rambling fucking reply. What you’re incapabe, is not reading (my mistake), it’s comprehension. Were you able to comprehend, you would know that two of the lawyers you accuse of “dissmiss[ing]” the teabagging have both called the conduct criminal And something is simlar to rape in that it’s done to frighten and humiliate? get a thesaraus and a dictionary lady, there many bad things one person can do to another to frighten and himiluate him and they’re not all called “rape” or “rape like.” Why is it that some people on this board see nothing wrong with correcting someone who miscasts an element as a heavy metal or gets its atomic weight wrong, or mistates the name of a character in a Pratchett book, or calls a Simpsons episode by the incorrect title, but then they lose their shit when someone informs them that their use of legal terms of art does not comport with relevant statutory definitions? Unbelievable ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/183 "2007-01-11T17:10:49Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] Only because he used his sex organs. If you use your sex organs to humiliate someone, you’re committing a sex crime. I don’t see where the hard part is. [/quote] There was no hard part. That’s why it wasn’t a sex crime. Okay, sorry for being flip just there. He used his penis and testicles. They are also referred to as sex organs, but they do other things than simply have sex. What if he peed on her? Would that be a sex crime? He sure would have used his sex organ to do that. Some people have sex using their anus. Would farting on her, again, be a sex crime? I don’t disagree that this behavior would fall under some definitions of some crimes. I never said it couldn’t. But, like your example of jaywalking, it’s more towards the “eh” side of the spectrum, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/184 "2007-01-11T17:14:17Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] Only because he used his sex organs. If you use your sex organs to humiliate someone, you’re committing a sex crime. I don’t see where the hard part is. [/quote] IYO, you mean. The problem with defining sex crimes so broadly is that you pull in a lot of actions that you may not have intended. Under your definition, waving your wang at someone is a sex crime. The argument in favor of limiting “sex crimes” to _clear_ sexual assaults is that you don’t run the risk of making them seem less serious than they are, by including a bunch of actions that are not really sexual in nature but just happen to involve exposing or employing the genitals. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/185 "2007-01-11T17:19:16Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] There was no hard part. That’s why it wasn’t a sex crime. Okay, sorry for being flip just there. He used his penis and testicles. They are also referred to as sex organs, but they do other things than simply have sex. What if he peed on her? Would that be a sex crime? He sure would have used his sex organ to do that. [/QUOTE] It would if he forcibly touched his penis to her. That is unlikely to happen in urination, but it could > [@](#): > > Some people have sex using their anus. Would farting on her, again, be a sex crime? And some people use their fingers and their mouths and their quadriceps. That doesn’t make them sex organs. There is an excellent 7th grade science curriculum you can use if you’re really confused about what is and isn’t a sex organ. ---
**Author:** ![whole\_bean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/96bed5/32.png) [@whole\_bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whole_bean)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/186 "2007-01-11T17:20:36Z")
if after reading **Jodi** ’s posts, this issue is still unclear, then I am afraid it is beyond you. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/187 "2007-01-11T17:25:52Z")
[QUOTE=saoirse] And some people use their fingers and their mouths and their quadriceps. That doesn’t make them sex organs. There is an excellent 7th grade science curriculum you can use if you’re really confused about what is and isn’t a sex organ. [/QUOTE] Well, help us out here. Lets say the poor victim was anally violated with a foreign object. Sex crime, or not? Under your definition, apparently not. Yet flashing someone from beneath your raincoat would be. Despite your referring of people back to seventh grade, these distinctions aren’t as easily made as you seem to think. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/188 "2007-01-11T17:31:15Z")
I would not presume to say how things would go in Kentucky. For anyone to say it was a harmless prank is amazing to me. To me it is pretty clear that it was a sex crime. The New Jersey Legislature agrees with me. Like many states they take the word rape out of the law. It is too loaded a word. There is Aggravated Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault, Aggrevated Criminal Sexual Contact and Criminal Sexual Contact. Sexual Contact is defined as: > [@](#): > > 2C:14-1 Definitionsd. “Sexual Contact” means an intentional touching by th victim or actor, either directly or through clothing, of the victim’s or actor’s intimate parts \*\*for the purpose of degrading or humiliating the victim \*\* or sexually arousing or sexually gratifying the actor. Sexual contact of the actor with himself must be in view of the victim whom the actor knows to be present; Which would make the crime in the OP: > [@](#): > > 2C:14-3a Aggravated Criminal Sexual Contacta. An actor is guilty of criminal sexual contact if he commits an act of sexual contact with the victim under any of the circumstances set forth in 2C:14-2a (1) through (5) Since the aggrevating factor is: > [@](#): > > (7) The victim is one whom the actor knew or should have known was physically helpless, mentally defective or mentally incapacitated. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/189 "2007-01-11T17:32:35Z")
Sorry, [link.](http://www.njcasa.org/law.htm) ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/190 "2007-01-11T17:42:17Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] And as others have said, intent is an element of many crimes. Burglary is defined at the common law as “unlawfully entering into the dwelling of another with the intention of committing a crime therein.” (Paraphrased.) Deliberate homicide requires intent. But the relevant inquire wouldn’t be the _degree_ to which the assailant got off, but whether he _intended_ to. [/QUOTE] Thanks for your comments, **Jodi** , I think it’s helping me understand. What you said here reminds me of one of the times I served on a jury. A young man had approached a car outside a nightclub, ordered the two people in the car out, and then shot the driver (non-fatally) when they either refused or failed to comply quickly enough. He ran across another parking lot and did the same thing to another person, fleeing a second time before he was caught by an off-duty cop who actually collided with him as he ran across the road. No one present had any doubts that he’d committed the acts—there were witnesses, recovered shell casings and bullets removed from the victims, and he had the gun on him when he was caught—but a couple of the jurors were very reluctant to convict him on the two counts of “attempted carjacking,” which required us to conclude that he intended to take the car(s). How could we be certain what his intent was, they felt? (It was pretty clear to me, with the shooting and the screams of “get the fuck out of the car now,” what his intent was, and the holdouts were eventually persuaded—but it did impress upon me what a difficult thing it can be to prove intent as a factor in a crime.) ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/191 "2007-01-11T17:44:18Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] There was no hard part. That’s why it wasn’t a sex crime. [/QUOTE] Ding dang it! That’s what I wanted to say. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/192 "2007-01-11T17:51:52Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] There was no hard part. That’s why it wasn’t a sex crime. Okay, sorry for being flip just there. He used his penis and testicles. They are also referred to as sex organs, but they do other things than simply have sex. What if he peed on her? Would that be a sex crime? He sure would have used his sex organ to do that. Some people have sex using their anus. Would farting on her, again, be a sex crime? I don’t disagree that this behavior would fall under some definitions of some crimes. I never said it couldn’t. But, like your example of jaywalking, it’s more towards the “eh” side of the spectrum, in my opinion. [/QUOTE] Look at my post. You may be right in some of the 50 states. God knows why that is. It is a sex crime under the laws of some states. I would not presume to say how many but your pronoucement that it is not a sex crime is wrong. In New Jersey it is a sex crime if the contact is used for the sexual gratification of the accused or to humiliate the victim. Aggravated Criminal Sexual Contact, third degree crime. A felony. Welcome to Rahway (maybe Avenel since it’s a sex crime). Megan’s law for the rest of your life. A sex crime. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/193 "2007-01-11T18:02:26Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] by including a bunch of actions that are not really sexual in nature but just happen to involve exposing or employing the genitals. [/QUOTE] I do think of actions that involve deliberately touching people with genitalia to be sexual. I have a very hard time thinking of any action that would involve deliberately touching someone with genitalia that _wouldn’t_ be sexual. I’m not claiming it’s any particular crime, since I know very little about the law. As a thought experiment, I imagined walking into a room where someone was putting his penis and scrotum on the face of another person. There is no way I wouldn’t assume that it was sexual. To go even further, if I imagined this same person putting his penis and scrotum on a child, there is no way I wouldn’t assume that it was sexual molestation. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/194 "2007-01-11T18:08:08Z")
[QUOTE=jsgoddess] I do think of actions that involve deliberately touching people with genitalia to be sexual. I have a very hard time thinking of any action that would involve deliberately touching someone with genitalia that _wouldn’t_ be sexual. [/quote] As I said, it depends on how you define “sexual” and what that means to you. I have no problem with your definition, but the post of mine that you are quoting from was in response to **saoirse** , whose apparent working definition of sexual assault does not include an element of “touching;” yours does. ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/195 "2007-01-11T18:20:25Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] Well, help us out here. Lets say the poor victim was anally violated with a foreign object. Sex crime, or not? Under your definition, apparently not. Yet flashing someone from beneath your raincoat would be. Despite your referring of people back to seventh grade, these distinctions aren’t as easily made as you seem to think. [/QUOTE] I believe that I said that showing dominance by touching someone with your own sex organs is a sex crime. The woman in the OP was not anally penetrated, AFAIK, so that issue doesn’t concern me. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/196 "2007-01-11T18:30:12Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] As I said, it depends on how you define “sexual” and what that means to you. I have no problem with your definition, but the post of mine that you are quoting from was in response to **saoirse** , whose apparent working definition of sexual assault does not include an element of “touching;” yours does. [/QUOTE] I don’t know if I would say that touching is necessary. Sufficient, but not necessarily necessary, er, necessarily. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/197 "2007-01-11T18:33:46Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] As I said, it depends on how you define “sexual” and what that means to you. I have no problem with your definition, but the post of mine that you are quoting from was in response to **saoirse** , whose apparent working definition of sexual assault does not include an element of “touching;” yours does. [/QUOTE] Which is simply not true. > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Originally Posted by Hentor the Barbarian > > There was no hard part. That’s why it wasn’t a sex crime. > > > > Okay, sorry for being flip just there. He used his penis and testicles. They are also referred to as sex organs, but they do other things than simply have sex. What if he peed on her? Would that be a sex crime? He sure would have used his sex organ to do that. > > It would if he \*\*forcibly touched \*\* his penis to her. That is unlikely to happen in urination, but it could (empasis added) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/198 "2007-01-11T18:43:07Z")
You people have me confused. Some people claim that rape is not done for sexual gratification but as a statement of power. Therefore, should it be prosecuted or is it just another harmless prank? And as for “what he witnessed was not a crime but if it happened to my sister the guy would’ve been beaten silly,” isn’t one reason we have laws and police so that the weak, like passed-out sorority girls, don’t have to put up with being bullied by the strong, like football players? Lawyers who wouldn’t prosecute this to the fullest under the KY sodomy statute make me sick. It is a clear violation because a scrotum on an open mouth cannot help but penetrate, if only by a couple millimeters. “Boo-hoo! His life would be ruined!” be damned. He attacked her and the guys who made no effort to stop him were complicit. Ruin his life. ---
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/199 "2007-01-11T18:43:15Z")
I said: “ **saorse’s** _apparent_ working definition of sexual assault does not include an element of touching,” to which you now reply: “Which is simply not true,” quoting a different post from the one I was referring to. Allow me to refresh your memory. You said: **If you use your sex organs to humiliate someone, you’re committing a sex crime.** Full stop. If this doesn’t accurately reflect your opinion because it omits the element of touching, fine, but don’t say I wasn’t truthfully responding to something you posted; I was. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2007, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436/200 "2007-01-11T18:48:08Z")
[QUOTE=Jodi] It is also worth noting in light of **pravnik’s** posts that not all jurisdictions require sexual gratification as an element of sexual crimes. My jurisidiction does not. [/QUOTE] Just to clarify, it’s not required for all sex crimes here either. Public lewdness or indecent exposure require the intent to arouse the actor or some other person, but sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault only require nonconsensual forcible penetration. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault-was-your-funniest-moment/387436.md?page=11)