Sex under false pretences - possibly triggering

Correction noted. Think I slipped into "common usage of the word" rather than "actual legal definition" there. Whichever word's used, that crime occurred as well as the sex-by-deception issue. But at the time our attention was diverted to the latter.

fraggling is correct.

My first sentence of my most recent post should have been I draw the line between "criminal sexual offence" and "shitty behaviour" by asking... because not all sexual offences are rape.

Assault by penetration carries the same sentencing options as rape btw.

Must have been assault by penetration

Rape requires penis in England and Wales

Lying to get end away is shit but not criminal. At this point don't see how it could be. Line would be v difficult. Interesting though that a woman has been done around this (said was man).

I remember getting quite frustrated when this case was discussed here at the time.

Clearly it has relevance to issues relating to trans issues, so the sex-by-deception element of the offence got most of the attention. TRAs were able to frame the whole thing as an example of anti-trans sentiment and centre the discussion around whether trans people should have to disclose their sex.

The perpetrator in that case penetrated the victim with an object. The victim had not consented to penetration with an object. There was no consent for penetration with an object - hence it was rape and should have been (was? I forget the precise specifics) prosecuted as such.

A penis is not an object. Consent to be penetrated by a penis does not equal consent to be penetrated by anything else the perpetrator feels like sticking up there.

That message seemed to get lost in the trans-related furore round the case.

Dervel I draw the line between "rape" and "shitty behaviour" by asking "would the information withheld or misstated affect the person's risk assessment of the sex?" STI status, biological sex, and condom use all affect that risk assessment. Criminal record might affect that risk assessment. Bank balance and educational level wouldn't affect that risk assessment.

In the cases of the lesbian and the transman, their lack of male organs would have affected the risk assessment: the transman's prosthesis caused injury and bleeding to h* partner and the lesbian's partner would have assessed risk of pregnancy as lower. "Lower risk" is still different risk*, especially as in one of the cases (I forget which) the victim was under the impression that they were TTC and was getting upset because nothing was happening and she thought it was somehow her fault.

I'm equally disgusted and terrified that absolute definitions are being eroded.

We are being indoctrinated by political correctness.
Men can be women, women can be men, and rape can be "consensual sex which you later regret".

I fucking despair.

If a consent violation happens around sex, isn’t that pretty much it? I’ve seen people make the case that prostitution can be perceived as rape as the financial hardships mean the consent is invalid as financial coercion is present. Could it also not be said that consent obtained through deception is also invalid?

Statutory rape ignores wether the victims actually consent as it’s deemed they cannot give informed consent. How can anyone give informed consent when deception occurs?

AlisonGrant see you can't because nobody has been arrested for lying about being single and that's what the OP asked if lying about being single was rape

And if you read my first post you would see that see that I told the OP that lying about being single wouldn't be legally considered rape: I'd hence argue that it's not legally going to fly as rape

There isn't a legal definition of catfishing.

I have said three times now on this thread that lying about being single doesn't make sex rape. Please stop lying about what I've actually said.

Removing condom is rape, terms of consent violated, exposing woman to risk of pg, std.

Lying to get end away is shit but not criminal. At this point don't see how it could be. Line would be v difficult. Interesting though that a woman has been done around this (said was man).

The undercover police, that was utterly morally reprehensible and I believe the people who ordered those activities should face proceedings but I don't know what. Have laws been broken. They had kids with them ffs the deception lasted years and was paid for by us, the taxpayer.

'I think you should invest in a oxford dictionary and look up the definition of rape

to force someone to have sex when they are unwilling, using violence or threatening behavior'

This is not the definition of rape under the law in england and Wales. Not sure about Scotland.

Please don't spread misinformation on the boards.

The part about having to include violence or threatening behaviour is particularly worrying.

I hate when people attempt to mislead women around the law, asserting that things that happen a lot are not crimes, when in fact they are.

I once sat at a wedding table with a celebrity lookalike, who was boasting that he wouldn't correct women who thought they were hooking up with the real deal.

When I told a friend about it, she told me she knows identical twins that let each other "have a go," before splitting up with their partners.

I thought this was a kind of rape, but I was young enough at the time to be convinced by mr rapey lookalike that I was a drama queen and it was no different to someone claiming to be ten years younger/a millionaire. It still doesn't sit right with me, so I understand why it's hard to draw a firm line.

There are some interesting precedents on this - there was a case in Israel where the man claimed he was Jewish but was actually an Arab. He was convicted of rape

That is a very dubious and in my view racist decision. It would not be followed in UK law (any jurisdiction)The facts are ridiculous. The woman making the accusation claimed on the one hand she thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor looking for a serious relationship yet she it was reported that the two met in the street and had consensual sex within 10 minutes of meeting each other.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/21/arab-guilty-rape-consensual-sex-jew

BBC News - Unravelling the Israeli Arab 'rape by deception' case
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11329429

A famous case in English law was a burglar who climbed into a woman's bedroom and she had sex with him believing he was her husband. I think he was convicted too

That isn't remotely the same. The accused was pretending to be another real person. That's completely different from pretending to be a richer, nicer, more eligible version of oneself.

There was the more recent case of the woman who pretended to be a man - she was convicted of sexual assault, I believe

I don't see what relevance this has to what is being discussed.

Under UK law pretending to be another real person known to the victim would be rape but otherwise consenting to sex is on the basis of you consented to have sex with the person you saw before you. In my view that is correct.

Surely if anyone consents to sex within the context of a monogamous relationship if it turns out this is a deception then a greater risk of stds is incurred?

This is why consent must be informed and meaningful. I would have no problem with this being a crime. In terms of agreeing to sex because you believe the person is wealthier than they are, or what religion they may be does not carry any greater manifest risk to a person.

There are some interesting precedents on this - there was a case in Israel where the man claimed he was Jewish but was actually an Arab. He was convicted of rape.

A famous case in English law was a burglar who climbed into a woman's bedroom and she had sex with him believing he was her husband. I think he was convicted too.

There was the more recent case of the woman who pretended to be a man - she was convicted of sexual assault, I believe.

There may also have been cases involving twins.

These are all off the top of my head - I'd need to look them up. In other words, however, sex under false pretences is definitely a 'thing' in law, but it's not always clear cut. Personally I think you'd be hard pushed to get anywhere with proving rape against the man who said he was single, particularly given the generally low conviction rates for rape.

All rape is a violation.

Not all violation is rape.

I appreciate that the two are frequently conflated - eg boys crowing about having 'raped' someone they've comprehensively thrashed in a videogame - but it is important not to water the definition of rape by extending it to cover all instances of violation.

Psychological violations and abuses such as lying about one's relationship or job in order to obtain consent to penetrate a woman's body must be recognised as unethical, and there is merit to discussing the possibility of criminalising some instances of these behaviours. But they should not be defined as rape.

@bd67th see you can't because nobody has been arrested for lying about being single and that's what the OP asked if lying about being single was rape

well it's not and you also do not know the legal definition of catfishing

my ex lied about being single, that was no rape and I dumped him and moved on

AlisonGrant ^if you consent and someone lied about their relationship status I'm sorry but that is not rape

RTFT. Read my first post. Read where I wrote:
Catfishing, aka lying about life circumstances, is the mark of an arsehole who should be dumped, but it doesn't affect your risk assessment of the sex act. I'd hence argue that it's not legally going to fly as rape

And stop setting up a straw feminist by ascribing words to me that that I did not say and in fact have said the opposite.

I take objection to your use of a dictionary to to define rape when it's a crime with a precise legal definition and as a crime the legal definition is the one that counts. I take objection to your assertion that violence or threats are needed when they are not. If you'd read the full thread, you'd have already known that I did not take objection to your assertion that lying about being single does not make it rape.

The cases involving undercover policemen, those are awful institutional abuses of power and violations of professional conduct. We expect the police to treat potential suspects and informants with decency and respect, not to shag them on false pretenses. On that basis alone they should be criminalised, we don't need to declare them to be rape as well

@bd67th please show me one case where someone was convicted of rape when the lady involved consented but then he lied and said he was single and he was therefor convicted of rape? you can't

@bd67th I don't need too

if you consent and someone lied about their relationship status I'm sorry but that is not rape

the op said "Well what if a woman consents to sex with a man who is single and available, but he was lying and wasn’t? She wouldn’t have done it if she had known the reality. Is that rape?"

that is an insult to real rape victims

Alison for your friend. (I've been there with a friend of mine, too, it is harrowing).

But bd is right - the legal definition of rape isn't fighting back, or saying no, it's absence of a yes. And that yes can be rendered invalid by a range of circumstances - if someone lacks capacity (drunk to the point of insensibility or drugged; hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt, but the legal definition of rape still encompasses these possibilities). Or a man presuming that because a woman had consensual sex with him half an hour ago, or the night before, she must therefore still be up for it - still rape if he doesn't check she says yes. Or if a woman agrees to sex but only with a condom, and he takes it off - because he's now broken the conditions under which she said yes.

And while some cases of rape are clear-cut, society does such a number on us that it's not unusual for women (especially young women, or teenage children) not to realise they've been raped until later. They chalk it up as "bad sex", they feel deeply upset and violated, but it's not till they're older/more experienced that the penny drops: "Hang on, I never agreed to that. He had sex with me without asking or caring. No matter how 'stupid' the situation I'd got myself into, that didn't mean I was asking for it. The onus was on him to ask me and he didn't. It was rape."

AlisonGrant I think you should read the Sexual Offences Act 2003 section 1 for the legal definition of rape. No force nor threats required, just an absence of consent, which case law has established includes some circumstances where consent has been invalidated.

If she consents to sex with a condom and he removes it, that's known as "stealthing" and is rightly a form of rape, because it changes the physical act of sex from protected to unprotected and invalidates the victim's risk assessment of the sex act. Someone lying about their STI status puts you at physical risk without your knowledge and invalidates your risk assessment of the sex act. Someone lying about birth sex invalidates your risk assessment of whether they could leave you pregnant or become pregnant.

Catfishing, aka lying about life circumstances, is the mark of an arsehole who should be dumped, but it doesn't affect your risk assessment of the sex act. I'd hence argue that it's not legally going to fly as rape, but that you absolutely have every right to be angry, disappointed, and feel that you've been taken advantage of.

People who are worried that "she lied about taking the Pill" will be used to convict women of sexual assault if they become pregnant after a Pill failure, her defence is to ask her Pill prescriber for a letter confirming that she was on the Pill at the time and confirming that the Pill is not 100% effective.

@MightyMagnificentScarfaceClaw I think you should invest in a oxford dictionary and look up the definition of rape

to force someone to have sex when they are unwilling, using violence or threatening behavior

what the OP is implying is ridiculous if you consented to sex and someone lied about their relationship status that is not rape
but people these days throw the term around loosely

a good friend of mine was raped and you would know if you was a rape victim as it haunts you for the rest of your life