What do you think of this...(possible rape)

Whoa - you don't realise the Bill/Ben thing is clearly and unambiguously rape? Bowing out of discussion at this point and ignoring all your future posts, because, frankly, your opinion is beyond stupid and way into the realms of utterly dangerous and offensive. Thank god English statute law and case law would recognise such a situation as rape.

'May I ask you to check upthread (not very far - on this page) as to my "Bill and Ben, identical twins" example, and tell me if you think that was rape or not? Because that makes it clear for me.'

I read the Bill and Ben thing. I don't think it was rape. Similar to the Derek/Mary scenario from yesterday, it's disgusting and immoral behaviour. Not every disgusting and immoral behaviour is rape though. I think Buffy nailed it early on with 'What the person consents to is sex with that physical human in front of them'. If Bill/Ben is in front of her and she consents to sex with Bill/Ben then it is not rape. It possibly is or should be another crime, but it's not rape.

He was the one who made informed choices though. The choices she made were based on lies he fed her. It is a bit more than he's shagging someone else as well as me. This is a different body, a different person to the one they agreed to have sex with.

Plus there is the whole wider picture. His targeting of 350 women.

He didn't care about their consent. That is rape.

He chose to deliberately deceive women as to his physical appearance.

He chose to present himself as an entirely different person, OutragedFromLeeds.

May I ask you to check upthread (not very far - on this page) as to my "Bill and Ben, identical twins" example, and tell me if you think that was rape or not? Because that makes it clear for me.

They both made a choice. Totally agree.

When two people both make a choice to have sex i.e. consent was given, we have to look at both choices before we can decide whether it's rape or not surely?

He chose to deliberately deceive women as to his physical appearance.

She chose to have sex with someone she hadn't seen.

He is manipulative and disgusting. She is gullible.

Does a manipulative person having consensual sex with a gullible person equate to rape though? IMO, no.

A lot of marital sex is based on the assumption and agreement that they will be having sex exclusively with each other. If one partner is manipulative and giving the impression of a faithful spouse whilst conducting an affair and the other party is naïve/gullible to that lie, is any sex they have rape? I don't think so. It's morally repugnant sure, but it's not a crime. I don't think I want adultery to be considered a crime. It is a significant deception though, so could be one under an 'informed consent' law.

They had the chance to turn the light on/take the blindfold off. They chose not to.

He had many chances to tell the women he was wanted to shag he wasn't who he was saying he was, over three hundred chances, he chose not to. He knew there was a good chance that he'd be refused sex if he told the truth, a person who would choose to ignore that fact and then actively choose to make efforts to shag them anyway, is the one who should be having their choices questioned.

You can argue the blindfold could have been lifted, the light could have been turned on, but the way I see it is, he also chose not to lift the blindfold or turn the light on. Probably because he knew that the woman in front of him would choose not let him put his penis inside her, he chose to not let her make that decision.

He put his penis where he knew it probably wouldn't be welcome if he was honest, I can't see how it's not rape. All his choices were much much more informed and calculated than hers, he's a dangerous sexual predator at the very least and women should be protected from him imo.

They had the chance to turn the light on/take the blindfold off. They chose not to.

Yes, we've already (on pg1 I believe) established that the women (plural) this man has deceived weren't being sensible, do you have another point?

What, for example, do you think of HIS choices, which is what should be being looked at. He did what he did knowing, or at least having reasonable belief that had he represented himself fairly, those women would not have consented.

If you don't have reasonable belief of consent then what is that? In law?

Absolutely Dervel. With the wrong hotel room case, there was very definitely harm caused and that was caused by the actions on the part of the man. It is wrong that there was nothing he was found guilty of.

Thanks, Yonic, for your comments. I know what I was saying is way out there. It was just a feeling I couldn't put into words well.

I do think the idea of informed consent is interesting.

Actually do you know what? Screw what the law does or does not say. The law should in principle operate on principles of harm/loss.

We seem to go round the houses on consent and what perpetrators "reasonably believed". When the focus should really be on has harm been inflicted. I can kill someone, even without intent and if that's deemed to be as a result of negligence on my part then that's manslaughter.

This man committed a sexual offense clear as day as far as I can see. He had intent to undermine consent through in this case fraud rather than force, I can totally see how the woman in this scenario experienced harm so I have no reticence in calling it rape.

Despite being a man I can speak from experience that having consent undermined through fraud sure as shit causes harm. My compassion is with the woman here. How she chooses to get her jollies isn't the issue here. Whilst I can see how some would say it was ill advised, given the state of the world NOTHING she did was going to cause harm to another, and she was merely going about her lawful business, but I would argue blaming her is just another varient of women not being free to walk the streets, or freely associate with whom they choose, for fear of being seen as culpable for assaults made against them. Which is quite frankly bullshit.

'The women had no chance to decide on their actual sexual attraction to him.'

They had the chance to turn the light on/take the blindfold off. They chose not to.

Simply lying about your name/what you look like/or some other detail does not negate consent.

But he didn't just lie about his name, what he looks like, or any other "detail". He presented himself as a different individual entirely. The women involved had given their consent, they thought, to that person. He was not that person.

Say I am married to Bill, who has an identical twin, Ben. I frequently give my enthusiastic consent to Bill. Unfortunately, Ben is not just an identical twin but an Evil Twin, and one day he dresses up like Bill, comes to my house when I am expecting Bill home (he's locked Bill in the boot of his car), says "hi honey, I'm home", responds when I address him as Bill, and sweeps me off my feet and into bed.

That's rape, too, because I haven't consented to Ben, I've consented to Bill, and this is not Bill.

I actually argued myself into a different pov on this one, so bear with me :).

I think we need to change the terminology from simple "consent" to "informed consent"

The medical profession, for example, consent is not enough, it must be informed consent.

So, you go to A+E with a sore wrist. A consultant appears and says he must cut your leg off. You say go ahead, you know best. Consent? Yes.

It is the Dr's responsibility to make sure you know why he is cutting your leg off, and the consequences of that action, or not, so you can choose whether to have your leg cut off, knowing the predicted outcome if you don't. The dr also has a responsibility you are capable of informed consent, not drunk, unconscious, mentally impaired.

Therefore in this situation I think it is both parties responsibility to have informed consent. He should make sure that she knows she is having sex with a man she hasn't met, and the risks she is taking. She equally, has the responsibility to make sure she is having sex with who she thinks she is, and if it turns out to be some 13 year old boy, that's on her.

So I think they were both wrong not to gain informed consent from the other party. But in this case it is him that does not have consent as he has not informed her that he is not the man in the photo- if he had told her that and she had still wanted to go ahead, then informed consent.

Also consent is pretty much always conditional. I may consent to PIV sex but that does not mean the man can have anal with me. I may consent to being blindfolded but that doesn't mean the man can tie me up. The conditions of these women having sex with this man were quite clear and based on the photo he provided.

Exactly Yonic. What would need to be decided in a court of law would be how much of a deception constitutes negating consent. And bowl, you can't say that because basically that is determined on a case by case basis. Yes there are no doubt precedents which could lead the courts one way or the other but it is unlikely that there is an exact case like this. And even if there was there is no guarantee of a similar outcome with different people present in the court and slightly different circumstances.

It still comes down him saying he was someone else AND the fact he targeted hundreds of women. Hundreds. This man is a danger to women and should not be allowed to put his penis anywhere near them.

Btw I'm not convinced if this goes to a court of law that he will be convicted. But that's not because I don't think what he wasn't rape but because patriarchy. Women are stoopid, women need to bear some responsibility etc etc etc

But lying about your biological sex can negate consent. What's the "quality" of that lie in law that's so much greater than lying about a 35 year age difference?

"No you've given us your interpretation of the law, bowl..."

No Scallops - I explained what the law is.... and then applied that law to this particular set of known facts. If I can find the appropriate case authority/citation, I'll look to post it.

There are many people calling this rape because they want it to be or they think it would be unfair if it wasn't etc.

Simply lying about your name/what you look like/or some other detail does not negate consent.

Canyou - logically if they both had blindfolds then they wouldn't have found each other in the dark.

That's a variation on the "if they were both blind drunk did they both commit sexual assault?" question.

To me, the answer is yes but what would almost certainly happen if the faults were deemed to be equal by the CPS or equivalent is that neither would be prosecuted.

And the flipside is - I don't know, but I suspect, that he wasn't using his deception on 65 year old women. He was making his own judgement about the appeal of younger sexual partners so he can't defend himself with a complaint of shallowness about who they fancy.

". It seems like a very Red Pill line to take, that someone is ugly and old so it must be rape. "

I don't think that's quite the point, (and I'm not sure if the man in question is ugly anyway). There was a fundamental misrepresentation of who he was. The women had no chance to decide on their actual sexual attraction to him.

I wouldn't call it 'rape' but I do think it should be a crime. Maybe give it a different name like 'sex by deception'?

Rape is defined quite differently in different jurisdictions. There is no one global definition. Maybe this should be something for global feminists to look at campaigning for?

Interesting discussion. It has made me think more about this case.

clearly the man in this case is at the best a deviant, deceptive ass. but just wondering -

All other facts being the same, if the woman in this case was a 65 year old woman who posted a false picture of a young woman on the website. And sex happened as it did. Were both of them raped?

It's rape. Of course it is. And he's a creepy predator.

But there is still something that strikes me as...well, I don't think we can say the woman was "just a bit dim". She strikes me as very unsavory. It seems like a very Red Pill line to take, that someone is ugly and old so it must be rape. I'm just thinking out loud and not trying to be argumentative. And I don't mean to focus the conversation on the victim. But I cannot shake the feeling that if the genders had been reversed, I would think the guy who was horrified at having had sex with an unattractive woman should get a fucking life and get over himself.

Not sure if anyone can help me unpack this. Maybe I am just very weary of a society which says that the worst thing that can happen to a man is to have sex with an ugly woman. I just find that really toxic, and here it is in this case but in the reverse.

Now, he is 100% a rapist. And it would be beyond traumatic to know I'd been deceived into sex with a predator. It's just this appearance thing I can't get my head around.

Deceiving someone is recognised as negating consent

He deceived her, this negates consent he therefore legally and emotionally raped her. He systematically attempted this with other women so he is a serial rapist taking advantage of women with impaired judgment.