For curiosity sake, what penalty do you suggest be imposed upon the bar? Clearly they failed to verify her age when serving her alcohol, but do you think they should be charged with facilitating a rape?
This scenario is very plausible. If you disagree, you’re out of touch with the reality of youth culture today.
I would find it much less absurd to charge the girl with using a fake ID than to charge the hypothetical man with rape.
The problem is that the punishment is way out of proportion with the crime. If it was a misdemeanour it wouldn’t be an issue, but it is considered a serious crime, people get YEARS in prison for something that they didn’t even know was a crime at the time. It can literally ruin someone’s life.
And your personal opinions on when people should have sex are both irrelevant and outdated. Most people see nothing wrong with one-nighters between consenting adults. Which includes college age girls, who very often don’t look that different from high school girls.
He didn’t RAPE anyone. WTF???
He had sex with a female, who was clearly willing. Where is the harm here?
Where is the justification for taking this guy’s life and ruining it completely?
Christ Dio, will you dial back the pedo outrage for five minutes and realize you’re being completely unreasonable? If you’ve never met a 12-13 that looked like she was 18 (or even older), then you haven’t met many 12-13 year olds.
My own sister would get pegged for 18-19 when she was 12. Usually by friends of my mom asking her what she’s majoring in at college. She was also offered wine by a server at my cousin’s wedding when she was 14.
It happens. I’m sure everyone on this board has a similar tale. Except you it seems.
By definition, sex with a person below a certain age is rape regardless of whether that person is consenting or not. Some people can argue that some 15- or 16-year-olds look and act like 18- or 20-year-olds, but the thing is you have to draw a line somewhere. You have to have a numbered age below which it is illegal. No one in his right mind would argue sex with a 10-year-old is okay, but once you start talking about 16-year-olds or so, there gets to be a gray area. 16, 17. About that age, sure some girls might be responsible enough to be up for it, some not. But you have to have a specific number that’s a legal cut-off below which you can be prosecuted. If enough people want that cut-off age to be below, say, 17, then the law will change.
But the guy who was fooled by the fake ID still committed a rape legally. I would hope a judge would take the circumstances into account, and I would not want to see that particular person’s life ruined, but it would still be a legal fact that rape, statutory rape, occurred. This is a good argument for choosing your sexual partners carefully.
I was thinking about this just last night as I was driving along a stretch of highway that always has one and usually two photo enforcement vans. Since my natural inclination is to go 80-85 when possible, even though the speed limit is 75, I don’t want a ticket from those guys. So I pegged my cruise control at 75 on my speedometer and let it sit there for the length of the trip.
I know exactly how fast I’m going. I took proper measures to ensure I wouldn’t exceed the speed limit. But what if a cop pulls me over or the photo van nails me anyway, and they say I was going 90? If it’s a quiet night and there aren’t any other cars to compare myself to, it’s entirely possible. I can only determine how fast I’m precisely going because of my speedometer, and there’s no way for me to tell it’s broken without independent confirmation. I took reasonable steps to ensure I was staying within the law, but the information I had on hand was faulty. It’s a travesty of common sense to insist that because I was speeding, I’m absolutely as culpable for it as if I had my foot to the floor. At worst I deserve a repair order; now that I know my instrumentation is faulty, I am culpable for further violations.
So it is with being deceived about a minor’s age. If they have an ID on hand and you check it, and they’re sufficiently grown to either be 16 or 19, how can you tell, short of running a full background check on them? That’s an unreasonable expectation. And it’s not a case of guys in their 50s porking 16 year olds; a 20 year old is just as culpable if he sleeps with a 16 year old. He was deceived.
Now, if he kept sleeping with her after the truth came out, throw the book at him. But it’s simple tunnel vision to insist that because the deed happened, he is utterly and completely culpable. You might as well throw out the charge of manslaughter and defense of self-defense; if you killed someone, you’re guilty of murder, regardless of the circumstances.
Diogenes said he raped a child, which is untrue.
Rape is a vicious, horrible crime which should be punished as severely as possible. This is not rape.
Calling this rape, even if it is technically correct, trivialises the whole concept of rape.
Semantically, I can agree with this, even if the law disagrees. I was brought up to believe that “rape” was a vile, immoral act perpetrated by the worst of the worst. That rape involved an element of dehumanizing a person and taking away a part of their freedom.
I can get behind the terms “indecent liberties with a minor” or “carnal knowledge of a child,” but “statutory rape” doesn’t sit well with me. It means “it’s rape because it’s defined to be such.” I would agree that any type of sex between an adult and a 10 year old is rape, but I wouldn’t agree that the girl in this scenario has been “raped,” even if the act was illegal and even if the law defines it as such.
Well, statutory rape is rape, legally, no matter how willing the minor. That is not my opinion, that is a fact. Again, if the minor were so devious as to lure the unsuspecting adult into it, I would hope any judge would take that into account. But it is rape. It may not be the sort of vicious, violent sort of act the word itself conjures up, but that’s still what it is.
Yes, but again, you have to draw the line somewhere. Sure, some 16-year-olds may be mature enough to decide, but not all. Hell, some 25-year-olds may not be mature enough to decide about sex. But there has to be a line. You simply cannot have a law that says “It’s rape with some 16-year-olds but not all of them.” There has to be one age where all of them below that are untouchable.
I’m not getting rabid about it. If I were the judge, I’d let that man in the scenario off with a slap on the wrist, but the fact is he crossed that line, unwittingly or not. It’s just the law. If enough people want it to, the law will change.
Now maybe you don’t have a problem with calling it “statutory rape” if it’s a 10-year-old, but you prefer another term for, say, 16-year-olds. Okay, let the law reflect that. But which age is the cut-off going to be between “statutory rape” and “carnal knowledge of a minor” or whatever term you want to use? 12? 13? 15? It’s going to be tough deciding. But again, there has to be a line drawn somewhere.
Zactly. We have the term manslaughter vs the various degrees of murder, even though a dead body is a dead body and it don’t get any worse or more final than that.
IMO the term rape is just too politically loaded for these borderline cases where the perp is probably more of a victim than the misleading and willing (though inmature) victim.
I have no problem with changing the terminology, but I would like to see it still called “rape” for the little kidees. However, I foresee a wrangle trying to get the lawmakers to decide the cut-off age between the smaller children and the more sexually mature teens.
Let the line stay where it is, but IMO, there needs to be a legal provision for the kinds of cases we’re hypothesizing. “I didn’t know how old she was” should be allowed as a defense, and if you can convince 12 jurors that any reasonable person could have been tricked just as you were, I don’t see the problem.
Agreed. The man in Laudenum’s hypothetical is the real victim, IMO. Were it up to me, I’d levy charges thusly:
For the bar, no charges. They exercised due diligence in determining the age of the entrant by checking her ID.
For the man, no charges. He also exercised due diligence in determining the age of his partner.
For the girl, I’d charge her with using a fake ID, and purchase/possession of alcohol by a minor, if she were drinking. If I was feeling particularly ornery, I’d charge her with facilitating statutory rape.
Flame away.
C’mon now. Read Laudenum’s scenario again. The “rapist” took many reasonable precautions to assure he wasn’t having sex with a minor but was tricked.
If I’m in a juice bar and someone slips some drugs in my drink and I get pulled over and get a DUI, should a jury not find me not guilty even if I can prove I didn’t knowingly take drugs? Do you also think “Yes, you should go to jail. You drove under the influence”? If you don’t think that, why not?
Of course not, because they didn’t facilitate a rape, but they should face whatever the normal sanctions are for serving a minor.
I don’t think it’s plausible at ALL that a bar would be fooled into thinking a 15 year old was a 21 year old, nor that some sleazeball predator at the bar would be fooled either.
The rape is a far worse crime, but the girl should be charged with minor consumption and the rapist should be charged with rape. 15 year olds don’t look like 21 year olds.
That hypothetical isn’t believable. I aso don’t find it useful to devise hyper-contrived moralistic scenarios for having guilt-free sex with children. Don’t have sex with people you don’t know and that won’t happen. It’s also not what’s typical. We don’t need every weasel who gets busted banging a child to make up stories about how he was fooled. Too bad. Don’t drop the soap. Next case.
No, you’re guilty of DUI. Even in you’re scenario, you know you’re drinking alcohol, and you should obviously be aware of any ensuing impairment from drugs, You are liable for the decision to drive. You don’t get a free pass to knowingly endanger other people just because your impairment was accidental.
Eh, badger specifically stated that you were in a juice bar, ie you weren’t drinking alcohol.
Now, drugs usually take a while to kick in. Suppose the effects had not kicked in before you started to drive? How would you know that you’re breaking the law? Do you still think you deserve to be prosecuted?
When I was 16, my best friend at the time (also 16) took his 21 y.o. brother’s birth certificate without his brother’s knowledge, went to the DMV, and got his picture on a license with his brother’s stats on it. He fooled the folks at the DMV and many bouncers and bartenders. Yes, it’s harder to pull this off at the DMV now, but once you find a way to pull it off, it’s easy to fool almost everyone that you are older than you actually are, especially if you’re particularly mature looking for your age.
Wow.
In the scenario I said I was in a juice bar. Why should I obviously be aware of any impairment from drugs? You realize it usually takes some time for drugs to have an effect, right? If this happens while I’m driving- too bad?
How am I knowingly endangering anyone in my scenario? Even if you missed that it was a juice bar I was drinking at in my scenario, you realize one can have a beer or two and drive a vehicle legally and safely, right?
To the fullest extent. Pull over when you feel it.
Once again, this is a scenario with no plausibility, by the way.
Right, because making reasonable decisions is easily done by folks with drugs in their system.