NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/talk/rape/1643

Text File | 1992-07-21 | 6.8 KB | 154 lines

Newsgroups: talk.rape
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!mrg!rpetsche
From: [e-mail] (Rolfe G. Petschek)
Subject: Re: Rape (what else?)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: mrg.phys.cwru.edu
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Rolfe G. Petschek)
Organization: CWRU Physics Department
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 92 14:38:40 GMT
Lines:      141

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>1. Actions speak louder than words.
>2. A woman should not be forced to resort to physical repulsion in order
>to convince someone that she does not want sex.
>
>However, there are women out there who are very, very afraid of thwarting a
>horny males libido. She may be saying 'no' as a way pf pleading you to stop.
>You continue, and she figures, "Oh God. I asked him to stop. He didn't. Well,
>I'll go through with this because if I try to puch him off, he may get violent,
>beat me, and then rape me anyway."

I think that it is important not only to draw the lines of what is
moral and legitimate but also the lines of what is legally rape (or
sexual battery, gross sexual imposition, sexual imposition) e.g. what
will a person who solicits sex have to prove (s)he did not do in order to
prove that what (s)he did was legal.  Part of this is so that persons
who submit to sex will know what they have to do to establish a crime if
they are violated, part is so that persons who behave morally will not
unreasonably fear accusations of illegal activity.

By the by in Ohio
Rape:    forcible sex
Sexual Battery:  Coercive sex
Gross Sexual Imposition: forcible sexual touching
Sexual Impostion: coercive sexual touching

Forcible includes particularly gross violations of ability to give
informed consent, coercive includes less gross violations thereof.

As far as I can see for it to be rape (or one of the other sexual crimes
listed above) it is not necessary for the person who submits to sex to

1) resist physically
2) resist verbally
3) say no
4) not say yes

It is not necessarily rape (or one of the other sexual crimes listed
above) if the person who submits to sex

1) says no and means it
2) is subject to some form of coercion
3) does not consent

The primary elements of these crimes in Ohio (and I believe other states)
seem to me to be

1) sexual conduct (any kind of actual sex) or contact (sexual touching)
2) the person who submits to sex
  a) can not give informed consent or is in an intrinsically coercive
    environment
or
  b) is forced by force, threat of force or "coercion which would prevent
    resistance by of a person of ordinary resolution."

>Hypo #1. They go into his place, sit on the couch, and he is on top of her.
>He unbuttons her shirt and lays it open. In a trembling voice she
>says a faint 'No.' When he continues, she closes her eyes and tries to imagine
>she is somewhere else.

2b?  no, I don't think so.

>Hypo #2. They go into his place and sit on the couch. He pushes himself on top
>of her. She pushes her crotch to meet his groin and rubs into it. She grabs his
>hands with hers and pulls them back onto the couch so he is pinning her. "What
>are you doing?" she asks, "Raping me?"

2b?  Still not, I think.

>As for me, I would say that where a man knows, or should know, that a woman
>is not consensual to sexual activity, he has committed rape. I would hope that
>the wait-in-the-bushes rapist gets a longer sentence, unless the man has
>committed a series of date-rapes, in which cases, punish both the same to
>discourage both.

What matters to me (and seeming to the laws of the state of Ohio) is the
degree of violence or coercion or impossibility of consent,
not the prior acquaintance of the parties involved.  Consent or lack thereof
is important to my moral judgements but I think fortunately not to the law
as proof or disproof of consent is not easy.  I rather think that the above
criteria are better.

Hypo 1) A man and a woman meet in a bar, she consents to drive him home.
Halfway there he insists he has to urinate right now.  They stop at a
deserted part of the road, he reaches accross and takes the car keys,
explaining that last time this happened "she drove off and left me".
Upon returning from urination his penis is out and he says "I have your
keys, lady, and if you don't get out of that car right now and suck me
off as if you really want it you, at least will be here still tomorrow
morning."  He is physically significantly stronger than she.  It is
midnight, no cars are around and there is no indication anyone is
within hearing distance.  He thrusts his closed fist into his other palm.
There is no car phone and she has no gun or aid for self defense.
She offers neither physical nor verbal resistance but gets out of the car,
says "Yes, yes please thrust your great big beautiful cock down my willing
throat" and he does so.

Rape.

Hypo 2) A man and a woman meet at a bar, he drives her to his appartment
for a night-cap.  It has been an hour since their last drink.  They have
this small (1 oz of vodka) night-cap and pet.  She says she wants
to go home.  He says that "I don't want to drive now, I spent $25 on you
tonight, and I won't drive you home until you suck me off."  She is
unacquainted with the part of town they are in but there are occupied
apartments all around and lights were on in some of them when they went in
a 1/2 hour ago.  He walks into his bedroom and strips, saying "be ready when I
am back" but leaving her with the phone.  She does not leave the apartment,
cry for help or use the telephone next to her to call 911 or the police.
When he returns he thrusts his erect penis in her face, she says no, he
pushes gently on the back of her head and says "come on, do it" and she
performs fellatio until orgasm.  He drives her home.

This man has behaved horrendously but no, this is almost certainly not rape
or lessor sexual assault (imaginably soliciting prostitution, a
misdeamenor?).

Hypo 2b) same as 2 except that the the man has given this 50 kg (110lb)
    woman as a nightcap a drink containing 100 grams (three ounces)
    of ethyl alcohol e.g. six ounces of 100 proof vodka (expected blood
    alcohol level .2%) with her knowledge.

Rape (actually sexual battery)

Hypo 2c) same a 2b but the vodka was used to make coffee and given to
    the woman without her knowledge of its alcohol content.

Rape.

Comments on these judgements are welcome.

I am not an attorney, this is not legal advice, if you take it as such
you are a blithering idiot.  Legal advice should be obtained directly
from a professional.
--
Rolfe G. Petschek            [e-mail]
Associate Professor of Physics        [e-mail]
Case Western Reserve University        [phone]
Cleveland Oh 44106-7079