Sex by deception

[RepeatAfterUs]

Following on from an earlier thread I this point below is in LGBT Labour's manifesto (thanks bd67th who linked)

Point 14: Review the law relating to legal issues of consent to rape and sexual offences to 'sex by deception' in order to remove potential discrimination and criminalisation of trans/gender variant people....

Now I might have heatstroke and I'm not 100% sure what that's saying...

However-Sec 74 Sexual Offences Act talks about consent and consent is:
Agreeing by choice
Freedom to choose (no duress or threats)
To have made a reasoned, informed decision
ALL ELEMENTS MUST BE PRESENT

I think the manifesto is taking issue with the last point-"informed". And consent applies to all sexual activity not just rape. So for instance a lesbian has a sexual encounter with a TW who doesn't disclose that they are a TW so the lesbian thinks it's another woman. Did the lesbian consent to sexual activity with a male? No. So the sexual activity would be an assault on the lesbian.

I think they want to over turn this protection which is pretty sick IMO

d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/lgbtlabour/pages/223/attachments/original/1446055384/Securing_Trans_Equality_(October_2015).pdf?1446055384

Sex by deception is pretty much rape as far as I'm concerned.

Did the lesbian consent to sexual activity with a male? No. So the sexual activity would be an assault on the lesbian.

I'm confused here; are you saying that in this scenario the lesbian decided not to have sex after realising that the TW had a penis but the TW decided to rape her anyway? Or are you saying that the TW performed oral sex on her without her knowing that the TW had a penis? Because these two situations are very, very different(sorry haven't had time to read the full thread). It's not sexual assault to not disclose your genitals before performing oral sex, especially if the TW didn't even know that they are a lesbian, therefore didn't know that it would be an issue. I wouldn't have consented to having sex with my DH if i knew that he had (hypothetically) called me a bitch yesterday, but that doesn't make it sexual assault.

According to the vast majority of posters on here, they have a special womanly spidey sense which tells them who is biologically male, and apparently they would be able to use it on any TW (essentially many on here believe that TW can never truly 'pass') so if it's so obvious who is male and who isn't, surely they would ask? I just think it's quite patronising to people who have suffered real sexual assault(like me) by saying that a trans person not disclosing their genitals before sex is committing sexual assault.

And if we're following the same thing here, if a man told a woman he'd had a vasectomy but didn't and they had sex, would that be sexual assault? What about if a woman told a man she was on birth control but wasn't?

TacoLover

And if we're following the same thing here, if a man told a woman he'd had a vasectomy but didn't and they had sex, would that be sexual assault? What about if a woman told a man she was on birth control but wasn't?
a) yes he's putting her at risk of pregnancy
b) he's not at risk of pregnancy. Birth control is fallible so he's choosing to take risk. Might have a case 're child maintenance.

"a) yes he's putting her at risk of pregnancy
b) he's not at risk of pregnancy. Birth control is fallible so he's choosing to take risk. Might have a case 're child maintenance."

Sorry but I don't agree. Vasectomies are also not 100% accurate, and I think the woman would be just as bad as the man in this situation because it's not just 'child maintenance' a child is a huge commitment that will change your life in a massive way. Obviously affects the woman more but I don't know why you would suggest that the man is committing sexual assault and not the woman when both would not have consented if they knew the truth?

The child maintance could be covered by fraud for financial gain

Which probably doesnt mean anything

I disagree re vasectomy. They very occasionally fail.

Anyone agreeing to have sex should do so knowing that there is a potential for pregnancy.

A sexually transmissable disease is not self - evident but beyond that anyone contemplating having sex should make their mind up on the basis of what they see before them. If the single, Christian, multi- millionaire turns out to be an unemployed, atheist, married job-seeker with a poor credit history - tough luck. Do your due diligence a bit more thoroughly if it's important to you.

Dammit!

The child maintance could be covered by fraud for financial gain

No it wouldn't.The law, like me, assumes that anyone up for having sex accepts the potential for consequences 9 months later. The law on maintenance is not interested in who said what or how the child was conceived. See Boris Becker's broom cupboard tryst. This is how it should be .

Too late...i left

Dammit!!

I just think it's quite patronising to people who have suffered real sexual assault(like me) by saying that a trans person not disclosing their genitals before sex is committing sexual assault.

I think plenty of women here have been sexually assaulted. I have been sexually assaulted on a number of occasions. I would feel violated and would see it as sexual assault if a trans person didn't disclose that information before having sex with me.

Some posters have been assaulted by people who turned out to have penises when they weren't expected, and they've pressed on.

It's not the done thing to post their names across threads or I would (and they may turn up here yet) but please don't diminish their experiences because of yours. It's not Top Trumps on who has the worst rape story.

Taking a condom off when consent was given for a condom is deemed sexual assault these days.

What bothers me about all this is that there are areas where morally / ethically something is wrong but where is the line into criminal? And we probably all do have different lines.

For eg I would say the police force / people in charge who decided that police officers should form relationships with those they were infiltraitng, to the point of long terms relationships and having children, and then just vanishing when the plug was pulled, leading in some cases for women and children to be searching for these "missing" men is so far wrong as to be criminal somewhere along the line.

However, I don't see lying about being married as being criminal, although it does obviously make you a total shit.

Mixed in with all this is the differential in the sexes, with practical biological reasons + social reasons often "pitting" men and women against each other in het situations, with women cast as the "gatekeepers" of sex, and men as the ones who should try any and all means to break down that gate (but supposing to stop at excessive physical force). With that dynamic in place, everything becomes complicated. Issues of consent between men and women are very complicated.

I think there would be ? around whether such entrenched behaviours vanish when a person decides they are the opposite sex... Do transmen display the levels of male sexual entitlement and feel as comfortable with really quite intense coercion as the average non criminal man? Do trans women lose it (cotton ceiling would suggest not).

All of this married / vasectomy stuff is a red herring.

The issue is, does a person have a right to know the sex of the person they are going to fuck / fucking/ in a relationship with?

The courts have said that women pretending to be men to get sex is bad and put them in prison.
Not seen a similar case with a man pretending to be a woman - I suspect that the more likely situation is with male partners (who seem bizarrely to really equate the trappings of femininity with female as anyone who watched big brother saw! - this is due to the level of objectiifcation) and then it's not the police that end up involved, if anyone is, it's A&E.

I am not sure where I stand on this TBH. It's an interesting topic to explore. Generally the police etc can't even manage to get to grips with the sort of rape that everyone accepts has no grey areas, as a crime, and so I don't hold out much hope for these sort of nuances.

I also wonder how we're meant to prove that someone lied about being a virgin. Bloody sheets test? It's all a bit medieval.

I shall have to answer this carefully, "Some Religions ", do require girls to be Virgins ,although a Solicitor and Dr friend has claimed to have helped some women overcome this , and have allegedly arranged travel to London for a , "Hymenplasty " at a well known Private London clinic

so far most legal cases have involved Straight Genetic Girls , supposedly tricking other straight genetic girls into having sex (presumably with a toy ? ) most perpetrators have so far denied they were even lesbians , let alone Trans (F2M in waiting )

TacoLover, you say sorry haven't had time to read the full thread. Shame, because if you had you would know that
misrepresenting your sex to a sexual partner is an offence. You can get a significant prison sentence for it.

You say: I'm confused here; are you saying that in this scenario the lesbian decided not to have sex after realising that the TW had a penis but the TW decided to rape her anyway? Or are you saying that the TW performed oral sex on her without her knowing that the TW had a penis? Because these two situations are very, very different.

The first is rape, the second sexual assault when there has been the offence of 'sex by deception'. Seven people have been found guilty of this offence in the last decade. Anyone who becomes intimate with someone while concealing something as fundamental as their sex is showing a willingness to entirely discard their partner's consent. It denies their agency and their sexual orientation. It's nasty stuff.

And it can be downright dangerous. A man who has sex with a TW and then finds out he's been intimate with a male may get violent.

But how would you know if it's 'concealing' your sex? Are you essentially saying that it's dishonest to not outright mention your sex? Isn't it obvious what your sex is even if you've transitioned?? I would disagree with sex by deception because the TW isn't deceiving the person on purpose. They don't have malicious intent to deliberately pretend they have a vagina until they've done oral sex on the lesbian(small minority excluded). If they don't know that the other person is a lesbian then how would they be deceiving them?

Also I didn't mean to suggest that it's some lid of 'rape competition'. I just personally found it quite frustrating that a TW not disclosing genitals to every person they have sex with being considered sexual assault when I've experienced something much worse and what I went through was dismissed by the authorities.

Not to men I think -

They seem to be totally thrown off the path by some tits and big hair

Women OTOH not so easy - we've seen in the recent cases that the women pretending to be men had to go to quite significant lengths (sex only blindfolded for one of them) to keep the charade going.

I think you'd know some of this if you'r read the threads / and maybe looked up some of the things mentioned.

For me -

I think it comes down to respect.

I know that gay men like cock. If I ID as a man, it is disrespectful not to mention on dating sites that I have a cunt. It is disresectful to expect gay men to date me / want me / go out with me when I KNOW that I do not meet their SEXUAL orientation.

The whole business about lesbians not wanting to date TW being transphobic shows an utter lack of respect. For lesbians, for boundaries, for SEXuality.

A respectful TW who passes super amazingly well should still not be going after a lesbian without letting them know that they were born male. The women they are pursuing might be OK with that - but it is up to her.

Is it criminal? Not sure.

The aspects I'm more worried about are coercion, shaming, all that stuff, which stays just this side of the law but is absolutely intended to "go on at women" until they are too tired to say NO AKA standard sexual coercion as practiced by men from the teens upwards.

I mean you read threads on here with 50yo men giving it "if you loved me you'd let me stick my cock up your arse" this stuff is standard standard standard and women everywhere recognise if for what it is.

TacoLover, you say:

According to the vast majority of posters on here, they have a special womanly spidey sense which tells them who is biologically male, and apparently they would be able to use it on any TW (essentially many on here believe that TW can never truly 'pass') so if it's so obvious who is male and who isn't, surely they would ask? I just think it's quite patronising to people who have suffered real sexual assault(like me) by saying that a trans person not disclosing their genitals before sex is committing sexual assault.

I'm guessing you're not female. Because if you were - or if you even took a serious interest in women and women's experience - you'd know that <a class="break-all" href="https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/08/sexual-assault-women-crime-survey-england-wales-ons-police-figures?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCCAE%3D#referrer=www.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">1 in 5 of us will be sexually assaulted.

I've been raped twice. That's sadly not uncommon. If I were a lesbian who found I'd been deliberately misled by a man who identifed as a woman into sexual intimacy I can imagine it being seriously traumatic. Just as bad as sexual assault. And that's not addressing how risky it might be to turn a TW down once we were getting down to it, what with their far greater physical strength and aggression.

This would effectively create a sort of RapeLite™️ Offence in law wouldn’t it? Is that somewhere we want to go? I’m not sure it is. It’s hard enough to get a conviction for rape as it is.

If you were a lesbian raped by a TW you'd believed was another lesbian I'd imagine the police would be as much use as a chocolate fireguard, Bowl.

Most rapes aren't reported because victims know they're seldom get prosecuted. That's one of the reasons the argument "but if you get raped in single sex spaces just call the police" boils my piss. Only men think reporting rape is likely to get you somewhere.

TacoLover you say But how would you know if it's 'concealing' your sex? Are you essentially saying that it's dishonest to not outright mention your sex? Isn't it obvious what your sex is even if you've transitioned??

And yet you say: According to the vast majority of posters on here, they have a special womanly spidey sense which tells them who is biologically male, and apparently they would be able to use it on any TW (essentially many on here believe that TW can never truly 'pass')

So you're clearly sceptical that lesbians will always be able to identify whether a sexual partner is a woman or a man who identifies as a woman.

You continue: I would disagree with sex by deception because the TW isn't deceiving the person on purpose. They don't have malicious intent to deliberately pretend they have a vagina until they've done oral sex on the lesbian(small minority excluded). If they don't know that the other person is a lesbian then how would they be deceiving them?

If a transwoman is hoping to have sex with a lesbian it is deceptive if the transwoman is aware the lesbian is expecting female anatomy once they're naked. Frankly, if you can't appreciate how traumatic that would be you need to work on your empathy. And your understanding of what sexual orientation means.

Plus, from my own experience, telling a male - however he identifes - that you've changed your mind after things have got hot and steamy is not likely to end well for the woman.

You say: I just personally found it quite frustrating that a TW not disclosing genitals to every person they have sex with being considered sexual assault when I've experienced something much worse and what I went through was dismissed by the authorities.

The fact that you think TW not disclosing genitals to every person they have sex with is frustrating suggests a total lack of respect for your partner's sexual orientation and their right to give informed consent.

""I'm guessing you're not female. Because if you were - or if you even took a serious interest in women and women's experience - you'd know that 1 in 5 of us will be sexually assaulted.

I've been raped twice. That's sadly not uncommon. If I were a lesbian who found I'd been deliberately misled by a man who identifed as a woman into sexual intimacy I can imagine it being seriously traumatic. Just as bad as sexual assault. And that's not addressing how risky it might be to turn a TW down once we were getting down to it, what with their far greater physical strength and aggression.""

I am female and I already knew that statistic but thanks (saying that if I were female I would know a certain statistic is quite frankly ridiculous)

I didn't say that a TW deliberately misleading a lesbian to have sex with them wasn't sexual assault. That is sex by deception. What I was saying was that a TW not disclosing genitals is not sexual assault by itself. Because say a TW is getting at it with a woman; if they don't say they have a penis(although it is quite blaringly obvious for most that they are biologically male) that doesnt mean that they are deliberately misleading the lesbian! How do you know if the TW knows this other woman is a lesbian? What a lot of people are saying is that any TW not disclosing their sex is committing sexual assault. I disagree because say they dont know the other person's sexual orientation; how can they be misleading them if they dont know they are only attracted to the female sex? Personally I don't consider lack of knowledge about the other's genitals a lack of consent; I wouldn't have consented to have sex with my DH if i knew he had (hypothetically) called me a bitch or kissed another woman yesterday, and i would also feel violated, but that's not sexual assault is it?

So you're clearly sceptical that lesbians will always be able to identify whether a sexual partner is a woman or a man who identifies as a woman.
Um, I'm not. I haven't really been in the same situation so i don't know how good i can tell but as the vast majority of posters think this, I'm just assuming it as true. Don't really know what you're going on about there.

If a transwoman is hoping to have sex with a lesbian it is deceptive if the transwoman is aware the lesbian is expecting female anatomy once they're naked. Frankly, if you can't appreciate how traumatic that would be you need to work on your empathy. And your understanding of what sexual orientation means.

Did you read what i said? I literally said 'if the TW doesn't know they are a lesbian' so how can they be aware that they're expecting female anatomy? And I said that deliberately misleading someone is sex by deception. So I don't know why you're accusing me of not having enough empathy when I described a situation where the TW doesn't know that the other is a lesbian