Sorry, I’m not sure I understand. A prostitute arguably has more power than a John, no?
D’you know, I think I understand your objections but I also think there’s a fundamental problem with how you view law: we don’t apply law via algorithm and we’ve judges for a reason. We can totally go “lying to sleep to someone is rape sometimes” and leave the “when” to precedent and to judges who get appointed to interpret these things. You don’t have to follow the line of reasoning off a cliff[1].
This, incidentally, is why I think all ‘zero tolerance’ policies are howling stupidity.
[1] Though, given the interpretation you appear to be working under, I completely understand your use of extreme examples. If the law is to be iron and applied mechanically, then you absolutely do need to stress test it with extreme examples. I just don’t think this is a situation where anyone sensible is suggesting we make “has told lie or has offered a chance to misapprehend truth” = “rapist” the law of the land.
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Crime stats disagree. Rare exceptions aside, a prostitute is probably hundreds of times more likely to be assaulted or murdered by one of her Johns than the other way around. 35-year-old-men don’t fear walking alleyways late at night because a 15-year-old-girl might rape and murder them.
In any case an undercover cop posing as a John most certainly has more power in that scenario. We’re talking about men who fuck women literally AND figuratively in the same transaction.
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But aren’t we just talking about the power to compel consent which for an undercover cop would be identical as anyone else? Surely we aren’t talking about who has more power in general?
I mean if it is just overall power differential, the President of the United States couldn’t sleep with his wife.
Actually the fundamental issue I’m having trouble wrapping my head around is that one can be retroactively raped. I’m just trying to get a handle on what reasons that becomes true beyond the obvious (and ultra-rare?) like impersonating your twin.
I can’t tell if people are arguing about it being rape if someone lies about their job or the reason they want to have sex. Is it specifically just police officers and prostitutes or are there other professions that would constitute rape? What other things can one lie about that crosses into retroactive rape? Ethnicity? Religion? Marriage status? Age? Gender? Nationality? Having children?
Where is the line?
If an undercover cop were to arrest a prostitute, and then to proposition her for sex, do you think she would agree?
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It was rape at the time. It’s possible to be victimized without realizing at the time. If a con man tricks you out of money by false pretenses, it isn’t a “retroactive” crime when you find out, it was always a crime.
However, laws are enforced as written (and as interpreted by case law) and the law in California, dating back to 1872, failed women who were raped by deception.
California law has been updated to prevent such injustice going forward.
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It would mostly be restricted to this specific scenario, identity fraud (like the example of a twin sleeping with their sibling’s spouse by pretending to be the sibling or the real life example of a woman deceiving her sexual partner into believing she was a different sex and person than the partner believed), and maybe a few other scenarios. About the only other occupation-related rape by deception I can imagine would be if you lied about being a sex surrogate for the purposes of having sex with someone.
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I don’t think you need a line. You can arbitrarily declare that this one thing, viz. police officers having sex with prostitutes and then arresting them, is Not Okay.
That said, I think the line is determined by a Reasonable Person standard: what can you reasonably expect to be lied about under the “people can be scum” expectation, and what is beyond the pale. Lying about being richer than you are, say, sounds benign if scummy. Lying about not having a dangerous sexually transmitted disease is clearly malign and something where, had the person not lied, no sex would have possibly taken place. The line is somewhere in between determined by societal expectation.
It’s not clear but that’s humans for you. Our behavior does not lend itself to being boxed up into convenient categories particularly well.
If you insist on something solid and fixed, I’d say that you can be retroactively raped if (a) a deception was made that is such that, were it otherwise, there is no possibility that sex would have occurred and/or (b) the person deceived will be substantially harmed by that sex having taken place.
In this scenario being deceptive about socioeconomic status, political views, &c is perhaps scummy but it does not harm the individual deceived and it is not impossible for the sex to have taken place since people do overlook those things all the time. Lying about STDs, birth control, or being an undercover cop planning to screw you over, however, do fit in this definition quite snugly.
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Ok, now we’re getting somewhere.
Are we talking about sex with the intent to do harm being rape? Because that standard is far more understandable to me.
Intent to harm or depraved indifference to harm coupled, in this instance, with deliberately compromising someone’s ability to offer informed consent.
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Eh. I don’t think we need to talk about consent at all. It just muddies the water as you’d get into all sorts of issues with all the other illegal transactions cops do undercover.
Let’s just talk about intent to do harm or reckless endangerment (in the STD case). While I may not totally agree that arrest is the kind of harm that the law protects against, at least I understand the argument for how it could fit into a reasonable definition of rape.
No, people who constantly deny things are rape actually do that.
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So they are allowed to lie, SLEEP WITH THE PROSTITUTE, and then bring them in? You don’t see a problem with that?
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The cop has more power than the prostitute, actually. And the pimp and by extension the john.
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You’re fucking with us again. Oh you kidder!
…now come back and remind us that you were impersonating someone who believes this.
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Yes. I emphatically see a problem with this. It’s wrong, it’s terrible, and as far as I’m concerned it’s rape by deception. I don’t condone these actions in any way, shape, or form. I also think prostitution should be legalized for what it’s worth.
What it’s not is entrapment. This is the only point I was trying to make.
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Fair enough. Thanks for clarifying.
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Clearly. This is why sex trafficking is such a problem: Prostitutes have so much power. Large gangs of unstoppable women force their way past border guards with their power, invading countries and forcing men to have sex with them for money. This is why these all powerful, nearly unbeatable women must be stopped by policemen brave enough to have sex with them to put an end to their evils ways.
/s
As much as I was trying to be satirical, it is actually the case that many cultures past and present consider womens’ sexuality to be predatory and evil, something to be curbed by strict legal and cultural restrictions, of which laws against prostitution are a legacy.
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