|
|
| Page 1 of 1 |
|
|
 Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 22:00 Post subject: Rape laws: Crime and clarity |
|
 |
http://www.economist.com/node/21561883
| Quote: | DEFINING rape, or trying to, is a sure-fire way to start a row. Does age matter? (In some countries, sex with minors is automatically rape; in others, it is not.) Must it involve violence? What kind of sex is involved? Is the victim by definition a woman and the perpetrator a man? Do time, location or the parties’ sexual histories play any role?
Views and laws vary hugely between countries and cultures. In South Africa, where four out of ten women say their first sexual experience was rape, the polygamous president, Jacob Zuma, believes “you cannot just leave a woman if she is ready.” To deny such a woman sex, would be “tantamount to rape”, he told the judge in his 2006 rape trial (he was acquitted).
In America, where an average of 232 rapes are reported to the police every day, such views would attract instant condemnation. But rape is controversial there too: in an argument about abortions for rape victims, Todd Akin, a Missouri Republican, spoke of “legitimate” rape (which critics took to mean that he thought some rapes were bogus). President Barack Obama countered that “rape is rape”. Political rhetoric (and gaffes) aside, the legal position is that America has no nationwide definition of rape. The federal code refers to “aggravated sexual abuse”; rape definitions vary by state, for example on whether force must have been used.
Across the Atlantic, the definition of rape is at the heart of the row about Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks. Swedish prosecutors want to question him regarding complaints brought by two women. He had previously had consensual sex with one of them. The other says she agreed to sex but only with a condom. One complaint is of rape, two of sexual molestation and one of coercion. Mr Assange has won asylum from Ecuador (he is holed up in its London embassy). President Rafael Correa says that Mr Assange’s alleged conduct would not count as rape in Latin America.
George Galloway, an MP for Britain’s far-left Respect Party, said that even if the Swedish women’s complaints were true they did not constitute rape. He argued: “When you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you’re already in the sex game with them.” Mr Assange’s behaviour might be “really sordid and bad sexual etiquette”, he said, but to call it rape would “bankrupt the term of all meaning.” (Many condemned his comments, including his own party leader.)
Although it usually counts as a safe country with high regard for women’s rights, Sweden has one of the highest rates of reported rape (see chart). This is bit of a puzzle: the most likely explanation is that Swedish women feel particularly confident in reporting sexual assaults, whereas women elsewhere keep quiet. Some of Mr Assange’s defenders decry the Swedish law as too sweeping. But Sweden, like many countries, counts sex with an unconsenting but sleeping woman (regardless of prior relations) as rape: that is at issue in Mr Assange’s case. The physical definition of rape varies too: English law defines it only as non-consensual penetration of any of three orifices by a penis. Elsewhere the crime includes other kinds of sexual assault.
Rape within marriage used to be an oxymoron. Now most Western countries have criminalised it (as England did in 1991). But in China and many Muslim countries, it is still not against the law. In others it is technically illegal but rarely prosecuted. Rape can even lead to wedlock in some Muslim countries, where charges are dropped if a rapist marries his victim.
Sharia law can make it hard for the victim to prove what happened. It typically demands a confession from the rapist or four male witnesses. In some Muslim countries, including Bangladesh and Somalia, rape victims may themselves end up being punished (including by flogging or stoning) for taking part in illicit sex. Some say that three-quarters of women in Pakistan’s jails are rape victims.
Rape laws also determine whether consensual sexual activity involving young people is legal. The first recorded law on this was in England in 1275, which made it an offence to have sex (with or without her consent) with a “maiden within age”. This was interpreted as meaning below the age of marriage, at that time 12 (Shakespeare’s Juliet was 13 at the time of her romance with Romeo). Most countries now set the age of consent between 15 and 18 (sometimes higher for men than women) though it is as low as 13 in Spain. In most countries, a minor cannot legally consent to sex with an adult, though laws vary. Some countries set rules about the permitted age gap in a relationship involving a young person; in others it is irrelevant.
This leads to a host of legal quirks. A 17-year-old and a 15-year-old can have legal sex in one European Union country (Denmark) but commit a crime if they canoodle in Britain (though in practice the risk of prosecution would be minimal).
Perhaps the most highly charged issue of all is the roles of men and women. Though rape is overwhelmingly (and, some would argue, intrinsically) a male-on-female crime, women may also sometimes be charged with sex-assaults on men. In Zimbabwe last year three women, said by police to be part of a nationwide syndicate, were put on trial for allegedly kidnapping and drugging men and then forcing them to have sex in order to collect their semen in condoms for use in rituals that claimed to make people wealthy. This year a woman in the Australian city of Adelaide was charged with rape after breaking into a man’s home and forcing him to perform oral sex.
More often men are the victims of attacks by other men. According to one estimate, 70,000 American male prisoners are raped each year. Male victims of rape in countries such as Congo are gaining more attention. Amid huge numbers of rapes of women there, men’s mental and physical injuries have long escaped notice (and some who fled to Uganda for treatment have faced prosecution for homosexuality). For them and countless others, wrangles about the exact definition of rape are beside the point. |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 22:04 Post subject: |
|
|
In my definition, and my ONLY definition, rape is non-consensual sex. If a woman - or man - gives NO permission or says "No" at ANY time prior/during then it's rape if sex commences anyhow. Coercion, pressuring people into sex should be considered sexual abuse also. There are no other definitions of rape in my book.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 22:11 Post subject: |
|
|
So... in Sweden, if a chick agrees to have sex with me, enjoys it, GOES to sleep with me and i wake her up by fucking her, giving her the same pleasure she enjoyed last night.... im a potential rapist? HEH! Ho boy.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
ixigia
[Moderator] Consigliere
Posts: 65093
Location: Italy
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 22:14 Post subject: |
|
|
| sabin1981 wrote: | | In my definition, and my ONLY definition, rape is non-consensual sex. If a woman - or man - gives NO permission or says "No" at ANY time prior/during then it's rape if sex commences anyhow. Coercion, pressuring people into sex should be considered sexual abuse also. There are no other definitions of rape in my book. |
+1  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
vaifan1986
Posts: 4640
Location: Birthplace of the necktie.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 22:31 Post subject: |
|
|
| Lopin18 wrote: | | So... in Sweden, if a chick agrees to have sex with me, enjoys it, GOES to sleep with me and i wake her up by fucking her, giving her the same pleasure she enjoyed last night.... im a potential rapist? HEH! Ho boy. |
So you buy the right to fuck a girl whenever you want even without her concent when you have has sex with her once already? You're not stupid are you? what if she wanted to have sex with you yesterday, but not today?
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 22:44 Post subject: |
|
|
Dont know what kind of fucked up women would have sex and sleep beside a man and wake up the next day a stranger to what went on and go ape shit if he wakes her up tendering or pleasuring her. Never seen or heard of something like that ever. (Unless she was drunk or drugged and thats another story)
And noone is forcing noone, the fact that she is there in the bed having sex all night was under her agreement, its illogical for her to show up next day yelling that she was abused or anything because the other party was never aware of any disagreement. Even if she wakes up with him on top of her.
In case you dont get it, this isnt a fucking comedy or a movie, i havent met someone as stupid and retarded as to have sex and sleep with someone and wake up the other day flipping tables.
I would be pretty shocked to live through that and find out the next morning that im getting sued or slapped for being loving. Good for me that its the other way around here. HEH
Anyone who says that it could happen is pointing out a trap or a con, because noone in their right mind would react like that.
Assage is catching shit because those 2 women are exploiting the law to sink him in a trap. It says political hunt all around.
edit: i had the chance to support a friend of mine, long story short, she went out with us, her house was locked, and she went to sleep with 2 of my friends to his house, next day they drop her off, in the afternoon they were accused of rape and abuse.
In the end it was determined that she had agreed to sleep in their house, and agreed to sleep with them in the same room, she was never forced and never disagreed, so the charges were dropped because it was an obvious trap. They didnt even touched her but they did sleep together in the bed. Oh yes, according to that read they are criminals, hilarious.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 23:16 Post subject: |
|
|
Honestly TL;DR. It's not a comedy movie, but if you think for one second that it never happens that a girl regrets having sex with some guy the day after then you're fucking retarded. End of story.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
| Posted: Wed, 5th Sep 2012 23:52 Post subject: |
|
|
I'm just saying it can happen. Nothing more.
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Page 1 of 1 |
All times are GMT + 1 Hour |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB 2.0.8 © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group
|
|
 |
|
