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When Is Rape Rape?

superfreddy said:
Would getting drunk be considered manipulation under your definition? What if she previously said "no way" while sober?
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If she voluntarily got drunk, and was not incapacitated (too drunk to know what she is doing), then no. You are still responsible for your own choices when you drink alcohol.
 
Tony said:
How I define rape:

When one person doesn't want oral, genital, or anal sexual contact and makes it clear they don't want it, but another person forces oral, genital, or anal sexual contact on them with either violence, manipulation or coercion.
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What if drugs are involved?
 
applecorped said:
What if drugs are involved?
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Same as with alcohol. If she willingly took drugs and was not so far gone that she didn't understand what was going on, any decisions she makes are her own. If she was rendered unable to give consent or she took the drugs unknowingly/unwillingly thats a different matter.
 
Tony said:
How I define rape:

When one person doesn't want oral, genital, or anal sexual contact and makes it clear they don't want it, but another person forces oral, genital, or anal sexual contact on them with either violence, manipulation or coercion.
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Here's how I define rape: Engaging in sexual relations with a person who could not reasonably be regarded as consenting to the act.

(For the sake of brevity, I leave "sexual relations" to be defined elsewhere.)

Your definition seems to have a pretty big loophole in it. An unconscious person can't make what they do or don't want clear, so under your definition drugging someone unconscious and then having sex with them wouldn't technically count as rape (as long as they don't have a chance to make it clear that they don't want to engage in sexual relations prior to being rendered unconscious).
 
Brian-M said:
Your definition seems to have a pretty big loophole in it. An unconscious person can't make what they do or don't want clear, so under your definition drugging someone unconscious and then having sex with them wouldn't technically count as rape (as long as they don't have a chance to make it clear that they don't want to engage in sexual relations prior to being rendered unconscious).
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I would consider that to fall under force by way of manipulation or coercion.
 
mijopaalmc said:
But how does choosing the craziest of the crazy to represent a position you oppose?
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I strongly disagree that it's the "craziest of the crazy". I've seen similar assertions made by relatively normal people. Such claims have even been made on this forum, in similar threads, in the past. What I think it is, is an emotional reaction overcoming reason; people parroting poorly-understood rhetoric rather than rationally evaluating the issue and proposing a workable solution.

This is a very emotional subject, and it can be very difficult to think about calmly and rationally. Indeed, for many people, attempting to do so is seen as devaluing the problem, because of its emotional impact; and the more emotional things become, the more emotional they can become. So irrationality tends to become the norm rather than the exception; and the tenor of debate devolves into unhelpful rhetoric.

Even the nature of the rhetoric tends to degrade over time because of this; as each new generation picks up the banner of irrationality. And it is understandable that this happens. Women have traditionally been devalued as second-class citizens; and rape is notoriously under-reported and under-prosecuted, with more victim-blaming than nearly any other crime. There's a strong cultural bias at work; which tends to produce rage and despair in its victims, making it much harder to retain a rational mindset. Opposition to the emotionalism becomes increasingly lumped in with dismissals, and those calling for reason tarred with the same brush as denialists and victim-blamers. Nuances of the debate are lost as the issue becomes increasingly black and white, Us vs. Them, and false dichotomies abound.

So what we see is that relatively reasonable rhetoric slowly devolves into reactionary polarization and useless name-calling. "Because of the history of rape prosecution, greater credence needs to be given to victims" becomes "Women should always be given the benefit of the doubt in cases of rape", which becomes "Women should be assumed to be telling the truth about rape without overwhelming evidence to the contrary", which becomes "Women never lie about rape". "Consent is a complicated and potentially difficult issue", gives way to "Consent needs to be clear and obvious, and there are circumstances which should be assumed to invalidate consent", which gives way to "Consent cannot ever be assumed, even if the woman says yes", which eventually gives way to "Consent is not magic; any time the woman says it was rape, it was rape".

This attitude again rears its head when the issue of male rape is brought up; and the rhetoric goes from "Male rape is an unrelated issue, statistically far less frequent, and not what is being addressed in this discussion", to "Male rape is unimportant", to "Male rape does not exist" to "Rape apologists are trying to devalue women with 'Think of the poor menz!'".

This lack of reason feeds on a similar lack of reason and creates an equally adamant and irrational opposition. "The problem is complicated, and needs to be studied, and better ways to differentiate between true and false claims needs to be found", is treated as "You're exaggerating, it's not as bad as you claim", which is treated as "The problem doesn't really exist, things are fine the way they are", which is eventually treated as "Crazy man-hating feminazis saying everything is rape".

After a while, groups start to define themselves by their black vs. white "purity" on the issue, and you end up with a lot of people trying to make their voice heard without really understanding the issue and its complexities. Since reason is no longer welcome, they're left with repeating the appropriate rhetoric, rather than risk being seen as "apologists" and "denialists", or supporting "radicals" and "crazies".

The problem is not that anyone is "crazy; that's just a too-convenient dismissal of the real problem - emotionalism increasingly overcoming reason and shutting out all rational debate.
 
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Information Analyst said:
No, as I outlined in post #89 above, (c) and (d) could be interpreted as covering MTP, but are more aimed one person (A) forcing a second person (B) to be assaulted a third person.
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I don't think you made that case at all. Person C is never mentioned in the section.
 
Tony said:
I would consider that to fall under force by way of manipulation or coercion.
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That doesn't plug the loophole.

The way you phrased it there are four conditions that have to be met for it to count as rape:

1. one person doesn't want [...] sexual contact
2. and makes it clear they don't want it
3. but another person forces [...] sexual contact on them
4. with either violence, manipulation or coercion

You've expanded the meaning of condition 4 to include drugging, but condition 2 still has not been met (because they've been drugged unconscious to prevent them from making it clear that they don't want it).

I think your definition would be more robust if you whittled it down to just conditions 1 and 3.

ETA: Yes, I know I'm nitpicking over a minor detail that isn't really important for the sake of a forum discussion, but IRL loopholes like that in official definitions can cause serious problems.
 
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brodski said:
I don't think you made that case at all. Person C is never mentioned in the section.
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Which is precisely the point. The wording defines "A" as the obvious offender and "B" as a single victim, sub-section 4 ambiguously refers to "a person" who could indeed be A, but is more likely be a third person, who could either be an offender or a victim.

Although Blackstone's states that, "There should be no differentiation between the starting point for 'rape' and an offence where a female offender causes or incites a non-consenting male to penetrate her vagina, anus or mouth," this really is a case of burying MTP within a much wider definition. In fact, it could be said that the way the whole section is worded, it could equally be applied to male-on-female rape, yet that remains a separately defined offence.
 
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luchog said:
I strongly disagree that it's the "craziest of the crazy". I've seen similar assertions made by relatively normal people. Such claims have even been made on this forum, in similar threads, in the past. What I think it is, is an emotional reaction overcoming reason; people parroting poorly-understood rhetoric rather than rationally evaluating the issue and proposing a workable solution.

This is a very emotional subject, and it can be very difficult to think about calmly and rationally. Indeed, for many people, attempting to do so is seen as devaluing the problem, because of its emotional impact; and the more emotional things become, the more emotional they can become. So irrationality tends to become the norm rather than the exception; and the tenor of debate devolves into unhelpful rhetoric.

Even the nature of the rhetoric tends to degrade over time because of this; as each new generation picks up the banner of irrationality. And it is understandable that this happens. Women have traditionally been devalued as second-class citizens; and rape is notoriously under-reported and under-prosecuted, with more victim-blaming than nearly any other crime. There's a strong cultural bias at work; which tends to produce rage and despair in its victims, making it much harder to retain a rational mindset. Opposition to the emotionalism becomes increasingly lumped in with dismissals, and those calling for reason tarred with the same brush as denialists and victim-blamers. Nuances of the debate are lost as the issue becomes increasingly black and white, Us vs. Them, and false dichotomies abound.

So what we see is that relatively reasonable rhetoric slowly devolves into reactionary polarization and useless name-calling. "Because of the history of rape prosecution, greater credence needs to be given to victims" becomes "Women should always be given the benefit of the doubt in cases of rape", which becomes "Women should be assumed to be telling the truth about rape without overwhelming evidence to the contrary", which becomes "Women never lie about rape". "Consent is a complicated and potentially difficult issue", gives way to "Consent needs to be clear and obvious, and there are circumstances which should be assumed to invalidate consent", which gives way to "Consent cannot ever be assumed, even if the woman says yes", which eventually gives way to "Consent is not magic; any time the woman says it was rape, it was rape".

This attitude again rears its head when the issue of male rape is brought up; and the rhetoric goes from "Male rape is an unrelated issue, statistically far less frequent, and not what is being addressed in this discussion", to "Male rape is unimportant", to "Male rape does not exist" to "Rape apologists are trying to devalue women with 'Think of the poor menz!'".

This lack of reason feeds on a similar lack of reason and creates an equally adamant and irrational opposition. "The problem is complicated, and needs to be studied, and better ways to differentiate between true and false claims needs to be found", is treated as "You're exaggerating, it's not as bad as you claim", which is treated as "The problem doesn't really exist, things are fine the way they are", which is eventually treated as "Crazy man-hating feminazis saying everything is rape".

After a while, groups start to define themselves by their black vs. white "purity" on the issue, and you end up with a lot of people trying to make their voice heard without really understanding the issue and its complexities. Since reason is no longer welcome, they're left with repeating the appropriate rhetoric, rather than risk being seen as "apologists" and "denialists", or supporting "radicals" and "crazies".

The problem is not that anyone is "crazy; that's just a too-convenient dismissal of the real problem - emotionalism increasingly overcoming reason and shutting out all rational debate.
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Very well said.
 
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