I am curious because there is often ambiguity over how much opposition needs to be demonstrated, before one can claim rape.
My view is that consent is needed from the get-go (an affirmed “yes”), but the second that someone changes their mind and shows it (saying so, pushing the person away, pulling away) and the other refuses to stop, it is clearly rape.
The more ambiguous situations I am unsure, since I am not involved in the legal field.
It is hard to give advice here, all cultures have different ideas on what is involved.
My advice is:
1.Don’t be an asshole.
2.Don’t have sex with someone crazy enough to falsely claim rape.
You can have all the explicit yes answers you want, do you want me to thrust again for the 48th time? Yes/no? It isn’t going to protect you from a nutcase.
Vet your partners, buyer beware, YMMV, etc.
What does “give no consent or opposition” mean? Lie there like a board?
You don’t vocally affirm “yes” or “no”.
Some people believe you have to SAY you are okay with it for it to be consent and “lack of opposition is not consent”.
Just to be clear, are you saying one person asks the other “is it okay if we have sex” and the other person remains silent?
Or (as is normally the case) that two people have sex without verbal negotiation beforehand?
This.
In which case one later decides they didn’t want it.
When you say “Someone revokes consent halfway through and the other continues.” you mean “revokes” in the sense of indicating by unambiguous words or conduct that the consent is revoked, correct? Because it could also be read to mean that the person decides they don’t want to continue midway through and doesn’t indicate it.
Issues of lack of/consent and communication of lack of/consent are easy to confuse.
You’re not giving enough info. If the person is drunk, it depends how drunk they’re acting.
If someone gives no verbal consent or opposition, it depends what both people’s actions were.
If the person clearly revokes consent and the other person continues then obviously that is rape.
Someone ‘drunk’ can’t give informed consent.
However…I do put at least part of the onus of that situation on the drunk person, so I didn’t vote for that, also because there was no indication if the other person was drunk, too. Not saying shit doesn’t happen, but it’s very murky territory. Drunk or not, a ‘no’ is a ‘no’ while things are still happening, so that one’s easy. Deciding later that one didn’t want to do it is more a life lesson than a valid claim, providing the individual is of age of consent.
And no, I don’t mean that co-ercion of inexperienced folk is something that inexperienced folk DESERVE, just that everyone needs to learn to speak up for themselves in that kind of situation, and most people learn that through experience, unfortunately.
I’ll describe each situation in greater detail, since it did not allow me to do so in the choices.
Situation 1; Two people go into sex without really saying anything… it just naturally progresses as such. Verbal consent nor opposition were given on either end. One of the people involved is uncomfortable, but says absolutely nothing nor indicates their discomfort in a way comprehensible to the other person. However, the next day they decide that since they didn’t really want it, they will claim rape.
Situation 2; Someone who is clearly drunk comes up to someone else (who is sober) and is flirting with them, and then the two go alone and proceed to have sex. The next day, after realizing what happens, the formerly drunk individual feels as if the sober one took advantage of their drunken state and that had they not been drunk, they would have said no. They then wish to press charges for rape.
Situation 3; Someone gives consent right off the bat (verbally) and then halfway through says “I don’t want to continue” but they are pressured into it and/or forced to continue.
All are clearly rape to me. I had to think about the 1st one for a second, but yeah, all rape.
There are, of course, extenuating circumstances. For example, if my boyfriend gets drunk and wants to have fun with me, I wouldn’t consider that rape. But if I’m out at a bar and hooked up with some stranger who was obviously intoxicated, I’d consider that rape.
In the first instance, if consent isn’t given, then that kind of goes against the idea of it being “consensual sex” right? I’m having a hard time picturing how this would happen. Maybe they were on meds and didn’t understand what was going on. Or maybe they were in some altered state of mind due to emotions and hormones and didn’t get what was happening. An odd situation.
Are you asking legally or morally or…?
Yeah, I see at least three ways one could look at it. Two are from the possible rapist’s POV and one from the possible victim’s.
It could be rape in the sense that:
It deserves criminal punishment.
It does not deserve legal punishment but moral opprobrium.
The person who feels violated deserves sympathy without blaming the other person.
If two people go on a date, have 3 drinks each and then have sex and that one of them feels badly about it the next morning, that person deserves a sympathetic ear but it doesn’t mean that the other person did something immoral or belongs in prison.
It’s the idea that the two just kind of went into it without any words but then the next morning, one of them regrets it.
Who would consider that rape?
Based on post #12 it is clearly:
Not rape. AKA buyer’s remorse.
Not rape. AKA dumb shit I did while drunk. I think that the drunk making advances in this situation make a difference.
Rape
How else is a drunk person supposed to get anal sex?
I don’t think #1 could possibly be considered rape, as the one regretting it the next day never once indicated so to the other person. So the other person thinks they had a great time, having no clue, because hey, who the hell has sex when they don’t want to? In just about any kind of confrontational situation, someone has to state clearly what’s bothering them, otherwise…yeah. It’s just an open window of opportunity for any and everyone to take advantage of them, if you can even call it that. I call it stupidity, naivete, ignorance, but not rape.
THAT is part of sex education that should be made very clear in schools.
On the flip side, sex education should also include being very sure the other person wants it, due to the naivete/stupidity factors involved.
Who wants to see their ecstatic 17 year old son devastated by a rape charge after what he thought was his first honest experience?
This is going to be a contentious thread most likely. There are those here who define “rape” as “anything he/she thinks it is” and those who define it strictly as creeps lurking in the bushes. Most fall somewhere in between. For me, only the last scenario qualifies as “rape”. Someone made it clear that the intercourse was no longer desired.
In my opinion, 1 and 2 aren’t rape. As someone noted above - life lessons.
#3 is rape.