Should the UK law on rape be changed?

[prashad]

I anticipate some flack for this post, but please hear me out and hopefully we can have an interesting discussion about this.

UK law current states that rape is necessarily committed by a man; that the perpetrator has to insert their penis into the victim. Of course, this means men can rape women, and men can rape men, but women cannot rape anyone.

However, many people would define rape as 'forcing someone to have intercourse against their will'. In the dictionary, rape is defined as;

"1.
the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2.
any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person."

It is my view that according to this dictionary definition, a woman can rape a man. Typical objections include the issue of erection when not aroused, but we all know that men can have involuntary erections when not aroused.

In light of the feminist aim of equality, should be campaign to change the law so that men who have been raped by women can have justice?

I know men who have woken up with a woman on top of them, or who have drunkenly had sex with a sober woman that they otherwise would not have slept with. Perhaps it occurs more frequently than we may think but men don't report it?

I am well aware that the above mentioned hypothetical assaults are against the law in the UK, but called sexual assault, and that the maximum sentences are the same, but why not brand such women 'rapists'?

Conversely, how would you feel if the rape of women by men was just called 'sexual assault' instead and the term 'rape' abolished from our lexicon?

Some men that I have spoken to about this are frustrated and unsupportive of feminism because of the perception that it seeks to increase the rights of women, rather than seeking to promote gender equality... and they site the lack of campaigning by feminists on issues where men are disadvantaged. Do you think that campaign for equality in rape law would be good for feminism because it would show a concern for equality in an issue where men are disadvantaged?

I'd also note that other countries (such as the United States) have updated their rape laws so that women can be convicted of raping men.

Thanks for reading.

Actually that's quite interesting. The word 'rape' is so loaded, maybe there WOULD be more convictions if the crime was 'sexual assault'. The severity of it could then be reflected in the sentencing. Rape convictions are so low and there's little chance of them increasing, it might actually work ( since most people's view of 'real' rape is a stranger dragging a woman down a dark alley, whereas most rapes are committed by someone known to the victim )

AWhole thanks for clearing that up.
I'm in Australia and we have a couple different words for the same offense but the the states that use rape as the offense it includes penetration by anything, I'm in NSW and there is no rape only sexual assault but it can be added to such as grievous sexual assault.

I can't quite get over how horrific the words I'm using are "only sexual assault" I wish i had better language to discuss what I mean.

I just want to say I think this thread should stand, for all the important information and relevant points raised by respondents :)

PS the thread title is "Should the UK law on rape be changed?". So quoting current UK legal definitions is 100% relevant.

However - I strongly feel that situations elsewhere in the world are also relevant when considering changing even just UK laws, because of the precedents and examples set, which may influence changes elsewhere (see people quoting US/Canada laws already above).

So making out there is no real difference between rape and any other sexual assault on women, or between rape and a woman sexually assaulting a man in this way, does not make sense to me when the reality lived by women (and men) in so many places is that there can be a massive difference - not necessarily of "better" or "worse" but in whether, why and how much it happens (for example, I'm pretty sure women sexually assaulting men through forced sex has never been used systematically as a weapon of war), in the immediate and longer-term effects already detailed, in how victims are treated by the law and by society, in how the attackers are treated/punished (or not)....

Right, now I am REALLY going to bed.

I think the law needs to be clarified. And what about underage sex. If a person cannot legally give consent to sex because they are under age, is it taken that no consent has been given so that is technically rape every time an underaged person has sex. This underaged issue really concerns me but not many people seem to be very bothered about it.

MyNameis post has got me thinking I wonder if what would be better rather then differing the individual acts so much to try and create scale within them is some way of placing a social context. This is really a rough thought and I know I haven;t thought about the all the consequences of what I'm saying. I sort of mean that for women that thier class as women should be taken into account because sexual violence against one women is a form of control and violence against all women. I might be suggesting creating and even more unequal justice system. Any thoughts ? Am I barkign up the wrong tree totally?

Viviennemary are you familiar with the Sexual Offences Act 2003
Because it seems pretty clear to me.

What about the 'underage' issue concerns you? what about the law would you like to clarify?

I've made it about halfway through this thread before stuff got triggering for me prashad I've experienced what would fit your definition, and to be perfectly honest I really don't like the tone of your suggestion re: feminists should do X as some sort of PR excercise to appeal to men.

Fuck that noise, I don't particularly like the idea of my experience and those of men like me being used as yet another stick to beat women with, as that is exactly what would happen. Can you imagine how many men would use the "oh yeah I did't give my consent" argument to get out of things like child support?

Other than myself and one other bloke who confided in me because of what I experienced I can think of several more female friends who have been raped, so anecdotally I know where the bigger problem lies.

It sounds to me like you sense some of the inequalities women face, of which you broadly agree is a bad thing and have turned your thoughts to what feminism could do better, and you've hit on this as your entry point. DON'T.

This is a nuanced, layered and complex problem society has to unravel. If it was as simple as one man somewhere having a lightbulb moment making a suggestion and everything is sunshine and roses it really would have happened already.

If you want to loiter in a feminist space do so in the knowledge that the lived experiences are very different from what we have as men, so rather than ask the question of what women should do to make themselves better listened to, ask what can men can do to listen and empathise more. I hope you consider what I've said.

As I understand it, there is a view in Canada that removing the word "rape" from the law has led to more difficulty with prosecutions. I believe there are some feminists there who would like to change the law to reintroduce the word "rape".

The idea of making rape laws gender neutral is utterly ridiculous and I agree with scallops that it invisibilises the gendered nature of the crime. Rape is something men do to women and other men. It is about power and dominance as well as violence and male sexual entitlement. Women can never rape men.

I think feminists should campaign for gender equality, and I think that issues are often not just 'mens issues' or 'womens issues', and that a more inclusive approach is needed to many things.

Feminists are too busy worrying about the 2 women a week that are murdered and the 98% of sexual assaults carried out by men to worry about changing the name for men.

Surely men's rights activist should be doing that?

I think feminists should campaign for gender equality

Men are not less equal to women in any manner that benefits women. They have detrimental impacts of patriarchy and toxic masculinity but women don't benefit from those impacts.

A couple of disjointed thoughts that I haven't time to expand on:

The quote about men fearing women laughing at them while women fear men killing them seems like relevant context;

Redefining rape to be a non gendered crime sounds like a handy way of rearranging the figures so they can be misinterpreted. Rather like the DWP using the "fraud and error" figures to suggest scroungers are bleeding the country dry, when most of that figure is fraud, not error.

Argh, should say "error not fraud" in that last sentence!

The international criminal court defines rape as:

The perpetrator invaded the body of a person by conduct resulting in penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim or the perpetrator with a sexual organ or of the anal or genital opening of the victim with any object or any other part of the body.

The invasion was committed by force, or by the threat of force or coercion, such as that was caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression, or abuse of power, against such person or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment or the invasion was committed against a person incapable of giving genuine consent."

I don't see an issue with the UK having that definition rather than the current one, and I think most people would agree that these invasive kinds of sexual assault are different to other kinds of sexual assault.

But I disagree with the UK classifying various kinds of non invasive sexual assaults as rape, because I don't think countries should redefine serious international crimes for their own purposes, particularly when the crimes form part of war crimes and genocide. We need to have shared definitions to fight these problems internationally.

Interestingly, the above definition does include rape of a man by a woman.
penetration, however slight, of any part of the body of the victim or the perpetrator with a sexual organ

The meaning of that would always be interpreted based on the case law that had led to the definition, which was not about women as perpetrators putting a penis in themselves (if that is what people are trying to say!).

It is trying to put things in gender neutral terms not because of the gender of the perpetrator, although issues of the perpetrator include that we might wish to prosecute people of both genders for rape for putting people into coercive situations in which the victims were almost certainly going to be raped by somebody else.

The reason it tries to put it in gender neutral terms is that sexual violence against men has often been classed in cases as torture or persecution as a crime against humanity rather than rape, meaning that sentences may be greater and guilt is easier to establish because the question of did you consent to be tortured, did your manner of speaking somehow give the impression you were asking to be tortured and so on do not come up.

The purpose of reclassifying various forms of sexual violence against men as not rape is because historically (crimes during war in the former Yugoslavia for example) rape is treated as a lesser crime committed against women. In fact even when men are being tried for torture or sexual slavery of women, defence lawyers will still try and turn it into a matter of rape so they can question the victim about consent.

So the OP's question makes no real sense. The current way rape laws are used don't disadvantage men. Rape of men generally gets reported not as rape but as a more serious crime. This happens not just in legal situations but also in general reporting. What has happened recently to young men in Russia for being gay is under international law legally rape, but it is reported by the press as torture or similar.

I want it either made legal or illegal to have sex when one or both people are underage. If it's illegal then prosecutions should be made. Which they hardly ever are. And clarification might have stopped some of the horrendous abuse of under aged girls by older men. It might not have but at least it would have been clearer cut a serious crime had been committed.