# sexual assault
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 22, 2000, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370 "2000-11-22T21:36:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@crckrrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crckrrick)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2000, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370/41 "2000-11-27T07:19:06Z")
One cold night long ago my girlfriend (ex now) and her sister went out for the evening to have some drinks. I waited up for them, but as the midnught hour arrived I grew tired and went to bed. Alas, at around two my bedroom door opened, a figure entered, the door was closed, shutting out the moment of half-light and leaving us in the dark. I healf-heartedly was awakened by hands rubbing my chest that I thought were my girlfriends. Naturally, the hands kept going and I became focused on my good luck.
A point came, when due to ceartain physical differences that I realized that this woman I was with was not my girlfriend at all, but someone with a much larger bra size! This may not be a normal reaction, but it scared the living hell out of me. I sat up and almost yelled “What the…?” and about a second after that, my door opened again, on come the lights and my girlfriend catches me sitting in bed with her sister’s hand around my cookie jar.
Suffice it to say all hell broke loose and to this day my ex thinks I knew it wasn’t her and when I see her, we’ll go to dinner, have a few drinks, be getting along great, and then she’ll get all angry and tell me I’m a horrible jerk because I was unfaithful to her with her own sister. I can understand her thinking, but I still don’t think her sister commited a crime. It did cost me one of the best relationships I’ve had, but I just don’t see where there was any malicious intent on the sisters part. Sometimes life’s just not fair…
But that’s definitly a case of how a woman can take unfair advantage of a man who can be quite aroused and not understand what he is doing.
“The loving swain
Can mountains move if he is resolute,
And though my suit
Is beset by endless obstacles and pain,
I’ll not despair,
But one day soar into heavenly air.”
-Cervantes from “Don Quixote”
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### Author:  [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2000, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370/42 "2000-11-27T10:32:29Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Originally posted by phouka
>
> Violence isn’t a necessary element of rape. Lack of consent is all that decides the issue.
>
> Dropping Rohypnol into someone’s drink, taking them home, and then having sex with that person while he/she is unconcious does not involve violence, but it certainly is rape.
>
> Threatening to release private details of a person’s life unless given sex isn’t violent, but it is blackmail and rape.
> \*\*
Perhaps we should look at all the meanings of violence. My dictionary includes:
“1.Physical force exerted for the purpose of violating, damaging, or abusing. 4. the abusive or unjust exercise of power.”
Dropping rohypnol into someones drink _is_ physical force for the purpose of violating, damaging, and abusing.
Threatening to release private details is called coersion, and it _is_ an unjust exercise of power. All of your examples illustrate an unjust exercise of power.
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### Author:  [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2000, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370/43 "2000-11-28T06:23:28Z")
Spooje,
I’ll concede your correction with the addition that language is often decided by perception, and many people’s initial perception of “violence” (including my own) is the use of brutal manhandling - a stereotypical idea of what rape is. I’m not content to assume that everyone is as enlightened as you are, spooje. That’s all. 😉
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### Author:  [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2000, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370/44 "2000-11-28T08:06:29Z")
crckrrick, I don’t see how you can say that’s not a crime. What if you reversed the genders? What if some guy tricked your girlfriend into having sex with him, with her thinking it was you?
That was most definitely rape.
Hmm, that thinking could lead further - what if you knew who you were having sex with, but they deceived you about who they were, i.e. a man pretending to be a woman. Should it be a crime if a man leads another man to believe he is a woman to obtain sex from him? This happened to a friend of mine, he was pretty drunk in a club and met a very convincing transvestite who ended up giving him head. He was very traumatized by this when he found out. If one could prove that the man actually claimed to be a woman (otherwise they could just say they assumed the other guy could tell) I think they would have a case.
Take it a step further - what if a man was tricked into having sex with an underage girl, she even had fake ID that he saw…that would be a form of rape in a way.
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### Author:  [@peace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peace)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2000, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370/45 "2000-11-28T16:00:01Z")
Badtz, yours and Crc… cases are excedeengly rare. A law cannot cover all eventualities. Lawyers here may tell how such cases might be prosecuted, e.g., under extortion, deceprtion, blackmail laws. Almost all laws have “mitigating” and “aggravating” circumstances, and if these episodes cannot be construed as clear cut “rapes”, they can be prosecuted as I suggested.
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### Author:  [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)
#### Post date: [November 28, 2000, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/42370/46 "2000-11-28T16:06:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by peace \*
> \*\*Badtz, yours and Crc… cases are excedeengly rare. A law cannot cover all eventualities. Lawyers here may tell how such cases might be prosecuted, e.g., under extortion, deceprtion, blackmail laws. Almost all laws have “mitigating” and “aggravating” circumstances, and if these episodes cannot be construed as clear cut “rapes”, they can be prosecuted as I suggested. \*\*
Frankly, I don’t care whether they fall within the scope of “rape” as defined by lawyers. To me, they are all instances of nonconsensual sexual contact, and in my mind that’s rape even if the law disagrees.
The law isn’t always right, you know.
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