Differing degrees of rape?

[Losty]

Ignoring the surely unintended implication that I am not a "real" man or a "normal" man

I was intending to imply that you were not a real rape victim if you don't believe what happened to you was rape.
Please check out my posts on this subject. I would never intentionally imply such a thing. There are few things in hate more than that whole you must blah blah blah a b and c in order to be a "real man". I hate that attitude. I think it's sexist. I have no idea which response is more common but I assume both most responses are normal. I need to practice expressing myself better I guess.

[Anomalocaris]

It does matter if the emotional effect upon the victim has an impact on the decision to press charges or support the pressing of charges.

If the victim was unwilling at the time of the act, but subsequently thought it wasn't bad and wouldn't mind repeating the experience, it was most definitely still rape, because ex post consent is no consent at all, and the perpetrator still deserves the same punishment as any other acts of rape. but pragmatically it would be difficult to make rape charge stick if ex post the victim declined the press charges.

The reverse is if the victim is unwilling at the time of the act, but subsequently thought pressing charges would be too ambarassing, or would open the credible possibility of serious retaliation, it would also be difficult to make the rape charge stick, regardless of what the law says.

If rape is an awful enough crime to deserve a lengthy prison sentence (and I think it is), then the law should (and is most places does) provide a lengthy sentence. You may think all rapes should be prosecuted to the fullest, but that will never happen because, whatever the law is, victims will to some extent determine how it is enforced. That is my point. And it's true of most crimes because the victim is usually necessary to prosecution.

Where we differ is in how we feel about the victim's decision not to prosecute. I think, as long as that decision is not made out of fear, that it's a good thing be it a fist fight, rape, stealing a package of gum, or embezzlement. If a man has sex with a woman before getting permission and she decides it a good thing, the law has no business between them unless she's a child or not able to give consent for some other reason. I don't believe in victimless crimes, and a person who does not feel victimized, is not a victim in my view.

Except I don't think a rape where the victim enjoyed it is strictly victimless, nor is the concept of victimlessness as applied to this case strictly the same as that used to argue that a victimless act ought not be considered a crime.

1. It is not strictly victimless because it creates the impression that whether act of rape is a punishable crime is an probabilistic thing whose probability is decreased by the probability of the nonconsenting victim changing his/her mind. This victimizes nonconsenting victims who would never change their mind by increasing the chance they would be raped on the the gamble that They would change their minds.

2. The victimlessness here with respect to the fickle victim is the result of happenstance. A true victimless crime is where the victimlessness is not the result of happenstance, but can be confidently predicted before the act.

[Brakeman]

Please check out my posts on this subject. I would never intentionally imply such a thing. There are few things in hate more than that whole you must blah blah blah a b and c in order to be a "real man". I hate that attitude. I think it's sexist. I have no idea which response is more common but I assume both most responses are normal. I need to practice expressing myself better I guess.

No, you are fine. I have great respect for you because you have such a good heart and fire in your belly to do what is right. We'll learn to understand each other better as we go. There are several really nice people on this board but they all have their quirks and you have to learn how to read them, because they don't always say what is really behind their thoughts.

Again, until this thread, I didn't really ever consider myself a "rape victim" it was one of the other poster's adamant "no consent sex is rape period" that pushed me to go along with it for the sake of discussion.

I stopped an extremely violent rape when I was 14. I've told the story on the board sometime before. I'll have to find it. The girls face was so beaten that you couldn't recognized her, but I will always remember my elderly neighbor trying to help her cover herself up as we were waiting for the police.

[The Valkyrie]

I will sum this up as far as I'm concerned:

Rape: BAD!

[Jenny A]

---

If rape is an awful enough crime to deserve a lengthy prison sentence (and I think it is), then the law should (and is most places does) provide a lengthy sentence. You may think all rapes should be prosecuted to the fullest, but that will never happen because, whatever the law is, victims will to some extent determine how it is enforced. That is my point. And it's true of most crimes because the victim is usually necessary to prosecution.

Where we differ is in how we feel about the victim's decision not to prosecute. I think, as long as that decision is not made out of fear, that it's a good thing be it a fist fight, rape, stealing a package of gum, or embezzlement.

---

If a man has sex with a woman before getting permission and she decides it a good thing, the law has no business between them unless she's a child or not able to give consent for some other reason. I don't believe in victimless crimes, and a person who does not feel victimized, is not a victim in my view.

Except I don't think a rape where the victim enjoyed it is strictly victimless, nor is the concept of victimlessness as applied to this case strictly the same as that used to argue that a victimless act ought not be considered a crime.

1. It is not strictly victimless because it creates the impression that whether act of rape is a punishable crime is an probabilistic thing whose probability is decreased by the probability of the nonconsenting victim changing his/her mind. This victimizes nonconsenting victims who would never change their mind by increasing the chance they would be raped on the the gamble that They would change their minds.

2. The victimlessness here with respect to the fickle victim is the result of happenstance. A true victimless crime is where the victimlessness is not the result of happenstance, but can be confidently predicted before the act.

Sorry, but no. What you are arguing is that all woman who have sex without first giving permission should be required to testify against their assailant. Whether she feels she's been injured is her business and if she hasn't she shouldn't be required to anything.

We don't require everyone who's been shoved or punched to prosecute either. And we shouldn't. Doing so is like second rape.

And yes, some victims make bad choices. But grown-ups get to do that with regard to themselves.

Besides, I really have a hard time imagining this would be rapist saying to himself, "well there's a good chance she'll like it and me afterwords, so damn the risk of prison, I'll go for it."

[Anomalocaris]

No, I am not arguing women be compelled to testify against their will, unless they are implicated in other crime and this is their plea bargain. What I am arguing is if the prosecution could nonetheless build a sufficient case to prove lack of consent at the moment of the act, the prosecution should not forgo the case merely because the woman gave consent ex post.

Regarding whether any rapist would be invited by the marginal possibility of the woman changing her mind, I think you underestimate the number of hotheaded pseudo adults with a high opinion of their own prowess enough to think their powers in the act would melt through any unwillingness.

[Jenny A]

No, I am not arguing women be compelled to testify against their will, unless they are implicated in other crime and this is their plea bargain. What I am arguing is if the prosecution could nonetheless build a sufficient case to prove lack of consent at the moment of the act, the prosecution should not forgo the case merely because the woman gave consent ex post.

Good luck with that. If the case is built out of what she told her girl friends, it's hearsay and not admissible. So unless we are looking a victim deciding that violent crime in public was okay after the fact there's no way to do it without the victim's testimony. And if it requires tons of facts about her sex life and what happened to her in graphic detail (which it will), it still amounts to a second rape if she doesn't want to prosecute.

Besides, we might be talking about a non-consenting spouse. And trust me, losing a husband to prison if she doesn't want to, may worse than sex for which she did not consent.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, if the act is caught on camera, or overheard, a case against it may not need any live testimony.

I don't argue prosecution should always exercise the utmost rigidity regardless of whether it makes willing victim of a crime into the unwilling victim of zeal. Some times the credible threat of prosecution is enough.

But obviously real prosecution has to happen some of the time in sufficiently analogous cases for the threat of prosecution to work at other times.

[Jenny A]

Well, if the act is caught on camera, or overheard, a case against it may not need any live testimony.

I don't argue prosecution should always exercise the utmost rigidity regardless of whether it makes willing victim of a crime into the unwilling victim of zeal. Some times the credible threat of prosecution is enough.

But obviously real prosecution has to happen some of the time in sufficiently analogous cases for the threat of prosecution to work at other times.

There are plenty of cases where the victim want to prosecute for real prosecution to happen.

[WinterHold]

A rape is a rape to me when :

1) The victim is assaulted totally against her will : she/he is not playing a game or whatsoever. Either by a husband or a boyfriend or a gang.

2) The victim doesn't understand what sex is (child, mentally handicapped).

I don't over think it. If one of the above conditions took place ; it's rape.
And on my scale, it's on 10/10 on the crime rate i.e the rapist should get a life sentence in prison.

Rape doesn't just takes of your dignity, it takes off a slice of your soul that you'll probably never get back..a rape victim might turn twisted because of the accident, she might hate all men, a man who is raped might turn into a suicide bomber -examples are the middle east ; in arabic prisons the guards torture male prisoners by raping them-.