Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Informed Consent

36 replies

SucculentChalice · 11/04/2022 13:59

Thoughts on this as its becoming a bit of a debated topic elsewhere. Just wanting to start a discussion, not a bun fight!

The idea is that with regards to consent for sex, if you are lied to and would not have otherwise have had sex had you known the truth (e.g. someone told you they were single when they were married or your boyfriend/girlfriend told you they were exclusive when they were regularly cheating on you, etc), you did not give full consent and therefore its a form of sexual assault. Not a criminalised form of sexual assault but sa of some kind all the same. Due to the lack of informed consent.

There are actually a very few court cases on this but one that sticks in my memory is how a woman faked being male and blindfolded her willing partner to keep up with the pretence. She was jailed for 6 years I think for sexual assault, but there are plenty of other examples where people lie and deceive to get sex and its not criminalised.

I just wonder if in the future it is something we will discuss more with regards to consent.

YABU if you think uninformed consent is ok.
YANBU if you think uninformed consent is not proper consent.

OP posts:

Original poster

SucculentChalice · 11/04/2022 20:40

@MangyInseam

I'd also say that to call this kind of thing rape isn't necessarily the best way to describe it.

We don't consider burglary the same thing as fraud though they are both anti-social, dishonest, and a way of accessing things that a person is not entitled to. Relabeling fraud as burglary isn't really what is going to make people take it more seriously. It might however make people think burglary is less serious.

I think you would have to call it something like an aggravated sexual assault or sexual assault with deceit and create a whole new crime for it.

It might also improve thinking about rape if the test were to include something along the lines of "would the alleged victim have consented to sex had she/he/they but for the deceit?"

OP posts:

AHungryCaterpillar · 11/04/2022 20:51

I commented this on the other thread I think it’s the same one? It was deleted, but my friend slept with a guy who told her he wanted a relationship, after he ghosted her, she said she had been raped because she never would have slept with him if she knew he was lying! I couldn’t believe what she was saying , Men lie to get women into bed all the time where do you draw the line?!

Qwill · 11/04/2022 20:52

I think it would be very difficult, and where would it stop? Say a woman said she was on the pill and turns out she wasn’t, how would that be proven? Or a wife had a long-standing weekly ‘appointment’ with her personal trainer (I.e. was having an affair with him but denied it). How could you prove that? I think a lot of police time would be wasted trying to prove these things. Where would you draw the line? Lying about degree grade is fine but lying about your job isn’t? It sounds an ethical minefield to me.

Bizawit · 11/04/2022 20:56

You want to criminalise cheating as rape? Perhaps you would be better suited to living in Saudi Arabia.

Lasttraintolondon · 11/04/2022 20:58

We can't make cheating illegal, much as its deeply fucking unpleasant and that's the kind of thing suggested here. We also can't keep criminalising everything. It's a no.

DrDinosaur · 11/04/2022 21:01

I'm not sure making everything we consider immoral also illegal is the best way to combat them.
It would be very difficult to prove that someone had lied, or omitted to tell a pertinent fact.

ImAvingOops · 11/04/2022 21:07

Having thought about it more since the other thread, cheating and exposing a partner to std and where that partner could reasonably expect to be in a monogamous relationship, is a kind of assault or fraud, even if you wouldn't categorise it as rape. Same as lying about identity or your sex to trick someone. This things cause real damage to people

Georgeskitchen · 11/04/2022 21:07

I think the courts/prisons are busy enough without prosecuting all the men(and women) who tell someone they are single when they aren't!!!
There wouldn't be any room for the actual criminals

Original poster

SucculentChalice · 11/04/2022 22:05

I didn't know there was another thread on exactly the same subject - can anyone link to it please?

OP posts:

AHungryCaterpillar · 11/04/2022 22:15

It was deleted.

justathought27 · 08/04/2024 13:09

My own opinion is that if someone lies for consent to sex, there is no consent. if there is no consent for sex then by definition, at best that's an assault, at worst a rape.
The only reason why someone would lie for consent is that they fear it would be a "flat no". if that's the case it's deception with intent.
It's premeditated assault.

A woman can withdraw consent at any point. before, during and after...

The law as we know it with regards to consent and rape needs a serious rethink as it is not fit for purpose. Rape has been made legal. It is without consequence.
0.3% of rapes reach prosecution. Most rapes are perpetrated by someone known to the victim. Stranger rapes are rare- being beaten into submission is rare.

"Shitty behaviour" the fact that men still believe it's okay to trick a woman out of Autonomy over their own bodies is abhorrent. it's about saying- " I need sex in this moment more than I have respect for you and your right to consent".
It's about saying "you are for my use" "your control over yourself is secondary to my need for sex".
If that's not criminal I don't know what is.
This forum is full of women- most of them parents , 50% with sons. I hope they teach their sons respect and consent. Boy's are not "best".

Flip

1 2