# Sexual assault? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692 "2016-06-07T00:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/41 "2016-06-07T19:05:59Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > So is administering an enema a sex act? > > Is breastfeeding a sex act? Yes. You’re doing really well. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/42 "2016-06-07T19:18:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Are you for real? > “I object, Your Honor! My client wasn’t attempting to sexually assault the alleged victim by “fisting” him. My client honestly thought the _supposed_ victim had stolen his wallet and hid it up his own rectum, so he went looking for it.” …and he didn’t find it the first time so he went looking for it, and he didn’t find it the second time so he went looking for it, and he didn’t find it the third time so he went looking for it… ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/43 "2016-06-07T19:27:14Z")
“Honest, your Honor, my client didn’t enjoy it at all” ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/44 "2016-06-07T19:34:57Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > Not all penetration is a sex act, no, but I’d say all nonconsensual penetration is. But maybe not. Maybe that could be non-sexual too, such as if someone were trying to steal something stashed in a vagina, I guess. Would your statutory definition of sexual assault be something like ‘non-consensual penetration of or by a primary sexual organ for sexual purposes’. ---
**Author:** ![GulfTiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e79b87/32.png) [@GulfTiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GulfTiger)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/45 "2016-06-07T19:49:49Z")
I would just stick with old fashioned battery. " an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact with the “person” of another" It doesn’t matter whether or not the perp got his freak on. Just punish him dammit. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/46 "2016-06-07T19:50:07Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Yes, I agree with the OP, among the totality of our perfect and ideal system of jurisprudence the dissonance of this law stands out like a vulture in a flock of swans. There is no greater injustice than prosecuting someone for a sex crime for non-sexually raping a disabled person in the ass with a wire hanger. This is why people have no respect for the law anymore. That’s why “sex crime” and “hate crime” tend to screw up our justice system. Rape is rape, murder is murder, assault is assault. If they had used a coathanger to put out his eyes, is that a lesser crime? actually, yes, which is just nutty. ---
**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:** [June 7, 2016, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/47 "2016-06-07T20:58:53Z")
> [@GulfTiger](#): > > I would just stick with old fashioned battery. > > " an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact with the “person” of another" > > It doesn’t matter whether or not the perp got his freak on. > > Just punish him dammit. How much you punish him is the question. ---
**Author:** ![Valgard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/7feea3/32.png) [@Valgard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valgard)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/48 "2016-06-08T16:36:52Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > That’s why “sex crime” and “hate crime” tend to screw up our justice system. Rape is rape, murder is murder, assault is assault. If they had used a coathanger to put out his eyes, is that a lesser crime? actually, yes, which is just nutty. On a tangent but we’ve done this debate before. Hate crime legislation is in place because we as a society have generally agreed that terrorizing a group based on something like their skin color or sexual orientation or religion (etc) is a bad thing, and targeting an individual because of a characteristic like that doesn’t just harm the specific victim, it harms others who share that characteristic. So you get punished for the crimes you committed but you may also get additional punishment for the wider societal impact of those crimes. A few years back I served on a jury in a criminal case which involved hate crime enhancements. Some of the most horrific things were done to the victim because the ringleader realized she was gay. Imagine how other lesbians felt knowing that they might have the same nightmare visited upon them because of their sexual orientation. The defendant got a huge (and entirely appropriate, IMHO) sentence based on the crimes he committed (and those sentences would have been the same no matter who the victim was - male, female, black, white, gay, straight), and several of those sentences were then increased because of WHY he did what he did and the impact that has on people other than the immediate victim. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2016, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/49 "2016-06-08T23:57:08Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > So? I’m asking why. That’s just a circular argument. You didn’t ask why in the OP, and my reply wasn’t intended as an argument. I was expressing my own surprise at your claim that you were surprised to learn that non-consensual anal penetration could be considered a sex crime and that you just couldn’t understand why such a law would exist. I said I was surprised rather than accusing you of starting this thread in bad faith because I thought there was some possibility that you sincerely wished to have a serious discussion about sexual assault. As you have since admitted that this is not the case: > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I’m just posing a question for fun, and challenging the answers. It’s no big deal. Relax. I see no reason why I, or anyone else, should bother answering your “fun” questions about anal rape. In fact, the next time you start a thread on any sensitive or controversial topic, I hope everyone remembers what you said here. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/50 "2016-06-09T00:16:09Z")
Cut him some slack. Even controversial, emotional conventional wisdom should be challenged often. Lance does that respectfully I think. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/51 "2016-06-09T01:14:51Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Cut him some slack. Even controversial, emotional conventional wisdom should be challenged often. Lance does that respectfully I think. I was cutting him slack, until he admitted why he started this thread. As for respectful, well, we clearly have different standards there. I personally do not consider it respectful to pretend that one doesn’t understand sexual assault laws in order to trick people into trying to explain them because it’s oh so fun to keep rejecting their answers. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/52 "2016-06-10T19:29:51Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I saw a recent news item about a young man who was assaulted by an object being inserted into his rectum recently. > > No doubt this is a terrible attack and the attackers should be convicted of a serious crime and pay for it. > > I find it a little strange, though, that it was labeled a sexual assault. > > The object used to penetrate was not a penis, or even a sex toy. > > The rectum is also not a sex organ. > > The attacker, as far as I know, got no sexual gratification out of it. > > Obviously, a penis in the butt is still a sex act, and a foreign object in a vagina would be a sex act, but the only thing that makes a foreign object in the butt sexual is its resemblance to a sex act. It can be, sure, but all by itself in a situation devoid of all over sexual acts or sexual gratification, it isn’t quite. Should it be classified as simply aggravated assault instead of sexual assault? I think a lot of men would be sexually aroused to watch a things being being inserted into an anus even if it was not a penis. Anal beads, dildos, beer bottles, etc. So at least in some cases anal penetration with foreign objects can be sexual in nature, particularly if its sort of rapey. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2016, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692/53 "2016-06-10T19:31:39Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I saw **a recent news item about a young man** who was assaulted by an object being inserted into his rectum recently. > > No doubt this is a terrible attack and the attackers should be convicted of a serious crime and pay for it. > > I find it a little strange, though, that it was labeled a sexual assault. > > The object used to penetrate was not a penis, or even a sex toy. > > The rectum is also not a sex organ. > > The attacker, as far as I know, got no sexual gratification out of it. > > Obviously, a penis in the butt is still a sex act, and a foreign object in a vagina would be a sex act, but the only thing that makes a foreign object in the butt sexual is its resemblance to a sex act. It can be, sure, but all by itself in a situation devoid of all over sexual acts or sexual gratification, it isn’t quite. Should it be classified as simply aggravated assault instead of sexual assault? Bolding mine. **Lance** Could you share the news item in question? Obviously not if it’s NSFW, but if it’s news, would like to see it. Thanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sexual-assault/756692.md?page=2)