Rape

I happened to get my Kindle to define 'rape' for me, and its definitions bothered me.

"the crime, committed by a man, of forcing another person to have sexual intercourse with him without their consent and against their will, esp. by the threat or use of violence against them"

"the abduction of a woman, esp. for the purpose of having sexual intercourse with her"

Now, several things bother me about these definitions. In the first one, the fact that it specifies that rape must be committed by a man. While " The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of U.S. rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male," there is still one percent of rape being carried out by women--that's reported.

The same is true of the second definition--why does rape have to happen to a woman? Just because something is more common doesn't mean that nothing else happens. Take homosexuality. I'm not saying that everything should always try to be about everyone ever, but using very specific words like that isn't necessary. (I've missed blogging).

Here's a gender neutral definition: "an act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person;

the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse."

The thing that really bothers me about all those definitions is the use of 'sexual intercourse'. If you ask most straight, vanilla people, (who, last time I checked, are the majority) they will tell you that sexual intercourse is: "heterosexual intercourse involving penetration of the vagina by the penis : coitus."

So, if you only got raped in the ass or mouth, or masturbated on, or anything else...too bad for you.

Now, in a lot of jurisdictions, certain non-sexual intercourse rapes fall under the category of sexual assault. Sexual assault is defined as " assault of a sexual nature on another person," with assault further meaning " a crime of violence against another person". Um...so...rape? Isn't that splitting hairs juuuuuust a little? To me, it goes like this: sexual harassment is if something says something to you: "What are you wearing under that?" "Women can't do _____", whatever. Sexual assault is if someone makes a pass at you, shows you bits of themselves you didn't want to see, but they don't touch you. As far as I'm concerned, as soon as they touch you in a way that YOU consider sexual (I don't give a flying fuck what they think) -- It's rape. This includes kissing, fondling, stroking, patting, squeezing, whatever. If you didn't ask for it, it's rape. A lot of those things are considered by many people to be more intimate than sex.

This brings me to my final definition (not destination):

"The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark 1998 judgment used a definition of rape which did not use the word 'consent': "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive.""

This means that even if you give consent, if you give it under any sort of duress, it is still rape. So that if someone convinces you to have sex, through peer pressure, threatening to break up with you, or substances, even if you say 'yes', it is still rape.

It also says 'a physical invasion', which pretty much jives with my 'no-touchee' rule. And they don't mention gender anywhere.

I think that this should become THE ONLY definition of rape that is EVER used ANYWHERE. And no, I cannot stress that enough. How many people would feel so much better about themselves and their loved ones if THIS was the definition of rape that they knew? I can only imagine.

The definition continues to the following inferences:

"Valid consent is also lacking if the victim lacks an actual capacity to give consent, as in the case of a victim who is a child, or who has a mental impairment or developmental disability. Consent can always be withdrawn at any time, so that any further sexual activity after the withdrawal of consent constitutes rape.

The law would invalidate consent in the case of sexual intercourse with a person below the age at which they can legally consent to such relations. (See age of consent.) Such cases are sometimes called statutory rape or "unlawful sexual intercourse", regardless of whether it was consensual or not.

In times gone by and in many countries still today marriage is said to constitute at least an implied consent to sexual intercourse. However, marriage in many countries today is no longer a defense to rape or assault. In some jurisdictions, a person cannot be found guilty of the rape of a spouse, either on the basis of "implied consent" or (in the case of former British colonies) because of a statutory requirement that the intercourse must have been "unlawful" (which is legal nomenclature for outside of wedlock). However, in many of those jurisdictions, it is still possible to bring prosecutions for what is effectively rape by characterizing it as an assault."

^{Oh, here's another good definition: Sex with a woman, other than the perpetrator's wife, without her consent. No more, "Not tonight, I've got a headache"! Once that ring's on her finger, you can rape her til the cows cum home.}

The whole Wikipedia article is very interesting.