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

[differentnameforthis]

Now I think this is rape. I appear to be a lone voice however, as most are calling those who fell for this stupid.

Opinions?

Rape?

'Not sure what adultery has got to do with it? It's only you claiming it has.'

Well, I'm applying your definition 'I'm seeing it as someone doing something that a reasonable person would recognise as cruel/harmful/unpleasant and that person not caring about that, just wanting to have sex- no matter what the other thought about it.'

Which you said 'Of course having sex with someone no matter how the other person feels about it is rape confused. That is the very definition of rape.'

But that definition would cover adultery wouldn't it? It would also cover someone pretending they were looking for a proper relationship, but only ever intending a casual fling. A reasonable person would recognise that as cruel/harmful/unpleasant. The person would not care about that. They just want to have sex. No matter what the other person thinks about it. None of us consider that rape do we? There is all manner of awful behaviour around sexual relationships, we don't consider it rape.

'because the nature of his deception crossed a critical line where he severely misrepresented his physical self, an order of morality lower than had he tricked her into sex by saying he was a multi-millionaire.'

I think this is the crux of why I disagree with a lot of other posters. As someone said earlier we're all coming at this with our own values influencing our view on this. I don't think that misrepresenting your physical self is worse/of lower morality/more damaging than misrepresenting yourself in other ways.

'Tricking' someone into sex is grim regardless of how you tricked them!

Why is the physical misrepresentation worse that financial misrepresentation? Or misrepresenting your relationship intentions, religion, marital status? I honestly can't see that it is.

Who has decided that the 'critical line' is physical appearance?

No you are not applying my definition at all. And no I don't think it would cover adultery.

I think people's position on the level of deception has been adequately explained throughout this thread.

I quoted your definition exactly.

'I'm seeing it as someone doing something that a reasonable person would recognise as cruel/harmful/unpleasant and that person not caring about that, just wanting to have sex- no matter what the other thought about it.'

That covers lots of scenarios that we don't currently consider rape. Cruel/harmful/unpleasant alone does not equal rape under the current law. The current law focuses on consent. I'm not saying that is 'right', but it's surely the current law?

Outraged, I don't think anyone thinks adultery would fall under rape in the current law!

That wasn't actually my definition. And that sentence was used to explain thoughts around deception/coercion.

However the important bit from sentence you quoted is "that person not caring about that, just wanting to have sex- no matter what the other thought about it". If you don't care about the other person consenting then you are raping them.

I'm not sure why you are so invested in trying to prove that this wasn't rape. This man is a dangerous sexual predator. Why are you trying to excuse/minimise his behaviour?

YY Yonic. And that has been adequately explained throughout the thread by several people.

'Outraged, I don't think anyone thinks adultery would fall under rape in the current law!'

No, of course not! The current law focuses on consent, not whether something is horrible/immoral/cruel etc. That's my point to Scallop.

'If you don't care about the other person consenting then you are raping them'

You are raping them if they don't consent. Your views on their consent are, legally, irrelevant. It's about whether they actually consent or not. There is a small, but significant difference there.

'I'm not sure why you are so invested in trying to prove that this wasn't rape. This man is a dangerous sexual predator. Why are you trying to excuse/minimise his behaviour?'

I'm not invested in proving this wasn't rape. I'm in invested in understanding why it was rape and what that means for other situations.

For example, I would never knowingly have sex with a married man. If I meet someone who lies and tells me he is single and who goes to great lengths to keep that lie up, we have sex, I find out he is married. Have I been raped? Prior to this thread I would have said, no. He is a massive bastard, but I consented to the sex. But given the arguments in this thread, I have been raped. I would never, ever have consented to sex if he had been honest. He must have known this, or at least suspected or he wouldn't have gone to great lengths to hide it.

To me this represents a massive shift in my previous perception of what rape is.

What I don't understand is, has everyone else always thought the above situation is rape? It seems not. For a lot of other posters, the difference is that it was physical misrepresentation. I don't understand this 'critical line'. For me personally, the married man situation would be as bad, if not worse, than a physical misrepresentation.

I have not minimised or excused his behaviour.

Leeds that was my definition and I wasn't meaning to imply that just because someone doesn't like something it's rape. I think you know that though.

'I wasn't meaning to imply that just because someone doesn't like something it's rape. I think you know that though.'

I do know that. Have I said something that indicates I didn't? If so, my bad wording and I apologise. I am entirely genuine and am not seeking to deliberately misquote or misunderstand anyone.

I'm well aware that 'cruel/harmful/unpleasant' goes well beyond 'not liking something'!

I think we all know that in this situation the women's feeling went a way past 'I didn't like that'!

I fail to understand how someone can put some of the considerations here in line with physical appearance.

When it comes to sex, physical attraction is pretty fucking important. I can't believe that anyone would put that on the same level as saying they're a plumber when actually they are a banker (for example).

This man targeted 100s of women with a ruse to trick them into having sex with him, when he knew they wouldn't otherwise. He managed to carry out his ruse with more than 1 individual. He is a serial sex offender and was doing his best to be extremely prolific.

Most people on this thread feel that what he did should be against the law. Due to the deliberate nature of his actions, his intent to cause harm, his extreme deception, and the fact that he targeted so many women.

If it was the case that he was talking to one woman and had got caught up in a lie and it was all terribly involved then maybe (maybe) some people would be a little less strong in their opinions. BUT he set about this is a deliberate way and was aiming for multiple victims, and the entire intent of his interactions was to trick women who would not normally consider having sex with him, into having sex with him.

When it comes to sex, the fact of fucking a hot young thing vs an ugly old bloke is pretty fundamental, that's just obvious to anyone. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have needed to lie in the first place, would he.

There is this sort of pervading feeling that looks aren't really that important to women / that if a woman consents to one she consents to all / that if a woman has certain sexual practices she gets what she deserves and so on, a lot of really toxic ideas coming through like I said earlier.

The too good to be true thing as well, dodgy as fuck.

Or that looks shouldn't be important to women.

This all goes back as old as the hills doesn't it. About women;s freedom to fuck who they choose being dangerous and needs to be supressed. And if you're the sort of woman who fucks people then well anyone is allowed to fuck you (e.g. attitude to raped prostitutes).

All toxic stuff.

Why is the physical misrepresentation worse that financial misrepresentation? Or misrepresenting your relationship intentions, religion, marital status? I honestly can't see that it is. Who has decided that the 'critical line' is physical appearance?

'Who' did not decide, the situation itself decided it! One is NOT inherently greater than the other, its entirely situational as to whether its a crime. Consider: If there were two people having a financial transaction, one saying and behaving like they were a millionaire just for the sake of the transaction but they were actually penniless... it would amount to fraud.

But suppose there is no fraud, suppose they are both, financially, who they say they are. If during the financial transaction one person discovers that the other persons name, 'Terry', refers not to a man, as they thought, but to a woman... that should have nothing to do with the exchange because the exchange 'should' (ethically) have nothing to do with sex/gender/body/age or whatever, it should just be about finances. Is that clearer?

It's interesting how engaged people get in the exercise of ensuring that rape is defined as narrowly as possible. Rape has always been defined by the men in power and it has been a centuries-long fight to get women’s perceptions included in the definition; (we’re not done yet.) It’s also nearly always been defined not by the behaviour of the perpetrator, but by that of the victim. In the past it was not rape if a woman was a lower social class than her rapist, or had married him, or if she had drunk alcohol, or was wearing a short skirt. Nowadays it’s sometimes if she’s drunk alcohol or had a previous acquaintance or flirtation with her attacker, or more than one sexual relationship with a different man, or if she’s behaved stupidly or naievely.

Behind all these restrictions on the definition of rape, is the idea that it’s a woman’s responsibility to prevent it, not a man’s. The default position appears to be that men want sex by hook or by crook and they’re not too fussy about whether a woman wants it or not, so women should make sure that if they don’t want to have sex with men, they’d better stop men raping them by being sensible, careful and cautious.

Nowhere in that idea is there any concept of a man as being a moral, ethical being who understands that he’s not entitled to sex and has a duty of care to everyone he’s intending to have sex with, not to rape them because he hasn’t bothered to check if they actually want him to put his penis in them. It’s a pretty insulting view of men, so it’s interesting that so many people hold it.

In every other area of life, it’s generally accepted that if you’re going to do something that may have an impact on someone else, even if it’s just a trivial impact, then the onus is on you to check that they’re OK with that, even when you're only doing something not particularly important, like temporarily dumping building or gardening materials in a shared drive, or letting them know that you're going to have a party and may play loud music until late in the evening. It’s only when men want to penetrate women without checking that women want them to do that, that people bend over backwards to point out all the ways that the potential victim of a serious crime, could ensure that crime doesn’t happen, while completely forgetting that the most easy way of ensuring the crime doesn’t happen, is to put the onus for it not happening on the potential perpetrator instead of the potential victim.

Agree basil.

Excellent post Basil. n

Its interesting you have that view basil, second wave feminism in the US back in the 70s and 80s wanted the term 'rape' to be replaced with other terms, eg 'sexual assault'. The reasoning behind that logic was that if a woman considered that she had been 'raped' she was less likely to report, whereas if she considered she had been 'assaulted' she was more likely to come forward. As far as I remember the thinking was also that it would cause women to suffer less guilt/victim blaming because rewording removed the burden of 'consent' being attached to the word 'rape', since no one will ever consent to being 'assaulted'.

That's really interesting dad I'd like to read more about that.

Thinking about it, I would have been much more likely to report if I could say sexual assault. The word rape, when speaking about myself, I can't bring myself to say it out loud.

so if a poor man meets a women via sugardaddie.com/ whilst claiming he is well off, knowing that the women on that site are after rich men, is that rape?

assuming he has otherwise consenual sex?

That's really interesting dad I'd like to read more about that.

Well, its pre-internet, my knowledge on it goes back to earlier public networks, discussions in micronet/compuserve. It would have been discussed in books/papers and I guess in law back in the day. I have no idea if it was just a US push in feminism/law enforcement or a more global one. Google might bring up historical references to it, let me think about how I would search for it.

I don't know carol. Why do you want to know? Perhaps if you want to have sex with a woman, stick to not misrepresenting yourself?

carol - is there really a pressing need to advertise a sex work recruitment site on the FWR board? Or on MN in general?

That crystallises another thing for me that has been nagging at me.

This idea that women have no sexual desires of their own, they are fundamentally all prostitutes, who "hold" sex and will "give" it to men if they feel they are getting something in return. Hence all the talk about "what if he lied about how much money he had" as if that would be, as fundamental, MORE fundamental, than what the man you are actually fucking looks like and whether you are physically attracted to him.

So many toxic ideas coming out through what people seem to think are really valid points just showing up how ingrained these damaging ideas about women and sexuality are. Just scratch the surface, in a case where people don't "know" the answer, and it all comes bubbling out.