So, Ken Clarke hamfistedly but correctly says there are degrees of seriousness in rape and the law reflects this – and causes great outrage. Not just from the avowedly feminist Guardian either. The Sun says he’s a danger to women, no less.
Interestingly, both the the Guardian’s and the Sun’s commenters seem to take a more nuanced view than their respective papers. As they should. Clarke was attempting to make a valid distinction. Sure, he messed it up, particularly when he appeared to confuse date rape and statutory rape, but of course there are degrees of seriousness in rape as in any other crime. To say that is not to say that any form of rape is trivial. Whoopi Goldberg’s much derided comment that Roman Polanksi was not guilty of “rape rape” was not outrageous because she attempted to distinguish between statutory and actual rape, but because Polanski had committed rape rape.
It distresses me that so many of those who seek to help to rape victims seem to act all the time as if they were a politician on the radio. By this I mean that they have always ready in their heads one idea, one sound bite, that they must express. Nothing must detract from that message; no ifs, no buts, no side issues. I agree entirely with the One Idea in this case: all rape is serious. But when one sees what trouble a real politician on the radio got into for merely touching upon the reasons for a sliding scale of sentences one also sees why most politicians try so hard to stick with the pre-prepared One Idea. Meanwhile Lara Williams in the Guardian (linked to above), a woman whose real-life experience of helping rape victims would lead one to hope that her views were rooted in observation, comes out with the sort of mindlessly simplified slogans that have given politicians a bad name:
Through distinguishing “serious” and “less serious” rape, Clarke assumed a perverse gradient of suffering, a warped taxonomy of perceived victimisation.
No one actually believes that. If called upon in court to state what impact a particular rape had had on a particular victim, I have no doubt that this writer would recoil in horror from saying, “Oh, the usual. All rapes have the same impact. All rapes are equally bad.” Yet that is the logical implication of what she has written. She is not the only such commenter. It is sad to see obviously intelligent and compassionate people with so little faith in the public that they make themselves believe that the only way to put forward a true idea – all rape is bad – is to coarsen it into falsehood.
On a related note, I get a bit annoyed at the constant insistence from the same people that any suggestion that a woman’s behavior is related to her likelihood of being raped amounts to “blaming the victim.” It seems like we ought to be able to separate giving obvious advice from condoning a crime! If I, for example, advise someone against wearing red in Crip territory (or however that goes), no one will mistake me for having condoned gang violence, or having come out against free speech. So, it seems like I should be allowed to say that getting out-of-control drunk at a frat party is unwise without automatically being accused of condoning rape. Sorry, I’m speaking mostly to campus culture in the United States, I guess, but I suspect several commenters here will share my frustration.
the durham lacrosse players are waiting for an apology.
As far as I’m concerned, no means no and anyone unable to actually concent due to circumstances (age, mental imparement, inebriation) shouldn’t be touched. Step over that line and you deserve whatever comes you way whether it’s a long prison term, stoning, or a bullet to the brainpan and a shallow grave.
That said, it absolutely is correct that we shouldn’t blame the victim, but we should recognize that women can do a lot to reduce their risk of rape. I’d love to live in a world where I could do whatever I wanted without fear of consequence. I know that when the bars get emptied out, there’s a greater chance of getting hit by a drunk driver. Therefore, I try to stay off the roads at 3am. 18 year old girl in a frat house full of drunk football players equals panties on the floor. It’s almost mathematical. If the girl isn’t there in the first place, she can’t be raped.
That said, and I certainly don’t want to minimize rape claims, but we should also be more leary of rape claims. As it is the cops automatically assume in a case of he said/she said that she is telling the truth. Everyone knows that girl who got hammered at a party, had sex, and in the morning saw her partner, groaned and said “what did I do?” and did the walk of shame. All she has to do is say “I was raped” and that’s that. Or the child who claimes she was touched by a teacher only to find out she was lying because she didn’t like the teacher (happened recently http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fairfax-teacher-sean-lanigan-still-suffering-from-false-molestation-allegations/2011/03/04/AFVwhh3G_story.html). But it’s such aa henious crime that we automatically assume it’s real.
So what is the fine balance? Make it a serious criminal offence to cry rape when it isn’t and we risk women not coming forward. Just take the woman’s word for it and we end up locking up a lot of men who didn’t commit rape but were the object of regret.
It is obviously true that it becomes more likely that you will be a victim of a violent crime if you go places where there are more violent criminals. It may be foolish to go to such places, but if you do this and you get raped/mugged/beaten up/whatever, this does not mean you are in any way morally responsible for the crime. The moral responsibility remains entirely with the criminal, and (if caught) the criminal deserved to be punished just as harshly as if he committed the crime anywhere else. I have see cases vhere police/prosecutors/judges actually have missed this distinction, and they need to be resoundingly condemned when they do this.
When it comes to rape, I always like to point something out. Needless to say, rape is a horrible, brutal crime, and punishment should be severe. But here in the United States it is almost certainly the case that more men are raped than women. I am referring of course to the US prison system, where rape is a way of life. By some estimates 25% of the 2 million men in our prison systems are raped systematically, frequently, sold as sex slaves, brutalized, gang raped, and infected with STDs. This happens under the direct watchful eye of the authorities.
Often when I mention this, there is almost a snickering behind the hand, and talk of “prison justice.” However, it is most often the weak and relatively decent prisoners, check fraudsters, drug users, frequent petty criminals, that are targeted by the worst.
To listen to the authorities talk, prison rape is almost a feature not a bug. It is used frequently as a threat in criminal investigations, and notably by Californian politicians to CEOs of power companies.
I don’t by any means want to lessen the terrible impact of rape on innocent female victims. But how come those who cry loudest about it seem to neglect these men who are systematically brutalized under the direct supervision of the people who claim to run our justice system?
The Duke University accused Lacrosse players are different thing – in that no rape (of any sort) took place. They were the victims partly of feminism (feminism in the modern PC sense – not the rights of women as, for example, J. Butler would have understood the matter) and partly of the inverted racism that has hit America in recent decades.
Back to Mr Clarke ……
Natalie Solent’s post is correct, but…..
Mr Pollard (in the Daily Express) explains the matter best – this was NOT a good minister who messed up in the way he was speaking (confusion of speech can hit anyone). The point about Mr Clarke is that he is a utterly usless minister (wildly wrongheaded) who most people do not understand why he is still in government – indeed why he was appointed to his position in the first place.
It is this frustration (what is Clarke doing in government….) that is really the source of the anger of Mr Clarke’s present words.
Mr Clarke really does not care about the victims of crime (including rape) his record shows this.
And his record also shows that he does not care about the principles of policy in any field – he just does whatever seems in line with establishment liberal-left thinking (regardless of the department he is in).
That might have been fine when he was a Cambridge student (after all it got him a good degree – and then a nice position in the law, and lots of nice positions on boards since, positions only given to people who will “fit in”, not ask difficult questions or try to find out what is really going on in a company or whatever), but at some poing a man has to GROW UP, and the problem with Mr “Ken” Clarke is that he never has.
Given the age of Mr Clarke it is very unlikely he will ever grow up – so he must be dismissed from a position that should only be held by a responsible adult.
But it does not stop here.
Who appointed Mr Clarke (in spite of his utterly useless record and attitudes)?
And who has repeatedly failed to sack him?
I am afraid the buck stops with Mr Cameron.
What about a danger to men? Think on it. Rape is notoriously difficult to convict so you define “lesser rape” well, the burden of proof is less too and the sentence is less. So you boost the crime clear-up rates without unduly clogging the jails.
If Ken wanted to say “Courts will continue to judge each case on the circumstances particular to that case and hand out sentences they feel are appropriate” why didn’t he just say that and leave it at that.
Rather than the manufactured kerfuffle over mashed up words and misunderstandings, I’d rather the media started considering the following: Has the State’s desire to secure convictions by rewarding co-operation with leniency gone so far in some cases as to no longer be justice and be seen to be justice?
I’m a prosecutor by trade and I hate ALL rapists.
Every time this subject comes up I hear all this “regret rape” stuff. It may happen, but I cannot imagine any sane woman carrying through with the whole sordid process if it weren’t true.
And to put in my “all rapes are serious” 2d, of course all rapes are serious. All thefts, all stabbings are serious.
All thefts, all stabbings are not the SAME as each other.
The fact that a carpenter has his truck and tools worth $5000 stolen so he can’t make a living and loses his family’s home does not trivialize my having a $5000 painting stolen from my wall- in fact, the law makes that, house burglary, a GREATER crime. And I as the “greater” victim can see that the mere theft is WAY worse.
Being cut by a knife and needing 20 stitches is bad. But doing that to my chest is not the same as doing that to a child’s face.
It is by any rational standard worse, and only an insane person would deny it.
Paul is right.
I heard this car crash interview as it went out on Five Live. Clarke was his characteristic brash and arrogant self. He is an intelligent man, but is notoriously lazy, and, unusually in a barrister, never really masters his briefs. His insouciant failure to read the Maastright Treaty is only one notorious manifestation of this. In this interview, he was brought up short by the suffering of a victim of attempted rape, and was reduced to the most pathetic waffling about date rape, serious rape and stautory rape. The concept he was groping for was “aggravated rape”, because it is the aggravating factors which can lead to rape attracting a life sentence at its worst. Again, as a barister he should have been able to explain this concept, but he failed utterly.
He is lazy, complacent and has completely lost the confidence of the British people. His crass assumption that a 50% reduction for guilty pleas will not lead to more criminals serving shorter sentences is so wrong as to defy belief. He should go, but in this Coalition of the No Talents, there is no way Green Dave will get rid of him, because he is in office, not in power, an empty suit who stands for nothing
I do not quite understand why Clarke got himself in this position, he is a minister having some responsibility for Criminal Justice. All crime is bad and justice should be done. Having said that, the best person to ensure that end is the Judge, it is his duty to listen to the evidence and listen to the jury and hand out a suitable sanction. He, after all is the one who hears all the details. Clarke is not in that position, mind you I take the view that he should not hold any position.
“I cannot imagine any sane woman carrying through with the whole sordid process if it weren’t true.”
And that, right there, is the crux of the problem. A prosecutor “can’t imagine” something, so of course it couldn’t be. Well, the Duke “rape” complainant went through with the “whole sordid process”, and I’ve heard no one allege that she wasn’t “sane” in a legal sense. People do a lot of strange things, Mr. Staghounds, your lack of imagination notwithstanding. If you don’t really believe that “regret rape” happens you probably shouldn’t be prosecuting crimes; your biases are too great.
The essense of the problem is that we have eliminated any distinction between “forcible” rape (a brutal crime, more about power than sex) and various forms of quasi-consensual conduct which we define statutorily as “rape”. There used to be a significant difference between the two, and there should be. If someone who is otherwise legally competent (i.e., of legal age and not under a mental disability) chooses to have her judgment impaired via drugs or alcohol and engages in sex which she later reqrets, that’s not “rape” in any meaningful sense even if she temporarily lacked the capacity to give meaningful consent. That lack of capacity itself was her choice. I’m not talking about the situation where she actually says “no”, but rather about the claim (such as was made above by Steven Rockwell) that inebriation = incapacity = inability to consent = rape. That should be wholly unacceptable.
And if a seventeen-year-old male has consensual sex with a fourteen-year-old female, that’s not “rape” in anything other than a statutory sense, and should not be punished in the same way as a forcible rape in a back alley. The two are orders of magnitude apart, but our criminal justice system makes no distinction between them.
The radical feminists believe that any sexual relations are ipso facto rape. Unfortunately, we have allowed their bizarre worldview to infect our criminal justice system to far too great an extent. Natalie is correct that there are degrees of rape. And there is conduct which we now characterize as “rape” that would have our ancestors scratching their heads in wonder.
Feminism in its contemporary form is nothing but infantilization of women.
Laird wrote:
So we end up in a “she was asking for it” state of mind. She got drunk by choice and someone took her home becomes no different than she put on a miniskirt and got beaten and dragged behind the bar. That’s one of the reason we’ve adopted laws that say inebriation is a form of mental incapacity. Granted drinking puts her at risk of being taken advantage of, but if someone is incapable of outright concenting by saying “yes” is it really an acceptable defense to say “well, she didn’t say no”? We already have laws on the books saying inebriated people can’t make certain decisions while drunk/high because they are that important. If I get hammered, I can’t enter into a contract, but I can make an informed decision with whom I want to swap bodily fluids?
No means no, but “she was incapable of saying no because she chose to engage in a legal activity” doesn’t mean exactly yes either. I’m sorry that such laws are even required, but the truth of the matter is there are enough men who want to get laid and don’t care who they hurt in the process. Quick rule of thumb: if she’s drunk or stoned, look but don’t touch. That way there’s no regrets, no walk of shame, no rape charges, none of it.
“She got drunk by choice and someone took her home becomes no different than she put on a miniskirt and got beaten and dragged behind the bar.”
A truly stupid comment which demonstrates that you didn’t comprehend anything I wrote. What part of “forcible” don’t you understand?
If the alleged incapability of saying “no” is self-inflicted (i.e., she wasn’t surreptitiously given drugs), there should be no basis for a criminal charge. “Yes is yes”, too; by what right do you demand that her partner make a judgment as to what constitutes legal capacity in the heat of the moment? Especially if, as is likely, both are somewhat impaired? At what point does being tipsy become inebriation become incapacity? Not only is that extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine objectively at the time, there is absolutely no way anyone can know after the fact.
Affirmatively saying “no” I accept (although it then becomes a classic “he said – she said” situation), but not the presumption of “no” which is what you would impose.
Oh, and by the way, you can get drunk and sign a contract. Ask your lawyer. And if you drive drunk you are responsible for the consequences, despite your obvious incapacity. The reason is that you chose to drink and drive; your dimished capacity is self-inflicted. Drinking is not an acceptable excuse for making a bad decision; it’s not a free pass to say “oops” and be absolved of the consequences. Except, of course, when you can call “rape” and get the feminazis to rally behind you.
Actually, Steven Rockwell is making quite a good case for being drunk or stoned as grounds for a plea of innocence on the part of a rapist. This has to cut both ways. On that basis, if a woman goes back with a man whom she suspects is under the influence she can hardly blame him if he acts inappropriately. It’s her duty of care not to put herself at risk.
Laird – you are completely wrong when you say
“Affirmatively saying “no” I accept … but not the presumption of “no” which is what you would impose.”
To be absolutely clear: if A and B have sex in the absence of both parties clear, unambiguous, competent and fully informed consent then it is rape.
Any form of coercion, either physical or psychological, or any form of deception (where the other party would not have consented had the truth been known) then it is rape.
When you say:
“If someone who is otherwise legally competent (i.e., of legal age and not under a mental disability) chooses to have her judgment impaired via drugs or alcohol and engages in sex which she later reqrets, that’s not “rape” in any meaningful sense even if she temporarily lacked the capacity to give meaningful consent.”
you are at best confused. If the party was capable of giving consent and gave consent, then that is not rape, even if the encounter is later regretted. But if the individual lacks the capacity to give consent then it is rape.
You also said
“by what right do you demand that her partner make a judgment as to what constitutes legal capacity in the heat of the moment?”
I find this a very strange comment. Are you seriously claiming that demanding that someone is certain that their sexual partners consent before having sex with them needs to be justified? If not what are you trying to say here?
The last bit is a bit of a give away about your attitudes to human sexual behaviour “…in the heat of the moment…” because when we’re horny we’re out of control, right?
I’ll go with John K and Laird on this, their advocacy is fine by me so far.
Try pleading I was so pissed/ stoned I didn’t know what I was doing as the perpetrator, and see how far you get these femipoliticised days, despite it having been a legitimate mental incapacity plea in the past in some instances.
Yes, women do make false Rape claims, for all sorts of reasons, there were over a dozen publicised last year in the UK alone, but they think they can hide behind the annoniminity rule. It has to go. Either both or neither are named, that’s only fair, and I prefer both, justice being seen to be done and all that.
Robert, you wrote: Any form of coercion, either physical or psychological, or any form of deception (where the other party would not have consented had the truth been known) then it is rape. I absolutely agree. Problem is, the fact that a woman was UI and would not have done it was she sober does not at all mean that she did not consent while UI. The real problem with these things is the ‘he said, she said’, but it exist with or without chemical influence.
And BTW, Steven’s insistence that people are only allowed to have sex while totally sober is silly at best.
Oh, and:
I certainly hope so!:-)
“Are you seriously claiming that demanding that someone is certain that their sexual partners consent before having sex with them needs to be justified?”
Not at all; I am assuming consent at the time. I am taking issue with your proposition that if she says “yes” she can later retroactively change her mind by claiming incapacity due to drunkenness (a condition which is self-inflicted). I am taking issue with the clearly erroneous proposition that there is a bright, clear, unambiguous line between competence and legal incapacity in such circumstances. And I am taking issue with the proposition that such a determination can easily be made by someone who might himself be slightly inebriated; or that it can be ascertained, sufficiently to justify years of incarceration, long after the fact by someone who wasn’t even there.
I’d thought up an incredibly sarcastic reply to this but it’s simply just not worth it. Nothing competes with the ridiculousness of this statement on its face.
Richard, sorry, but I see nothing wrong with that statement on its own – can you support your assertion of its ridiculousness?
Oh, and as to “Any form of coercion, either physical or psychological, or any form of deception (where the other party would not have consented had the truth been known) then it is rape.”
Arrant nonsense*. If I convince someone to have sex with me by claiming to be Henry Kissinger**, and she later learns the sad truth that I’m not, to you that constitutes rape? Or if I assure her that I’ll respect her in the morning, and promise to call her tomorrow, but do neither, it’s rape? You live in a strange world.
But then, if she says that she’s over the age of consent but lied, by your rules I guess she raped me, right?
* Is there such a thing as non-arrant nonsense? Just asking.
** Yes, I intentionally picked an extreme example. I rather think my odds are better than his, but you never know.
Oh, I see: Laird makes a good point – never mind, Richard.
Laird, your example is not all that extreme: a year or so ago here in Israel an Arab man was convicted of rape on the basis of the fact that he presented himself as being Jewish to a woman, who willingly had sex with him – according to her solely on the basis of that presentation. The woman in question never met him before, BTW. You just can’t make up stuff like that. Someone above mentioned ‘sane women’ – please define ‘sane’?
It seems to me that consent is not a black and white thing. On the one end is “have sex with me or I will kill you.” On the other end is “Your beautiful would you please make babies with me.”
In between is a whole spectrum of levels. “Have sex with me or I will break up with you.” “Have sex with me or I will post these naked pictures of you on the Internet.” “Have sex with me or I’ll ruin your reputation.’ “I bought you dinner and drinks you owe me a good time in the sack.” “My boyfriend was asleep so I woke him up with a blowjob.” “Have sex with me and I will give you $300” (which some feminazi’s consider exploitation and rape.)
Alternatively, back to my prison rape situation, “be my gang’s sex bitch and we will prevent the other gangs from killing you.” Or “I’m your prison warden, so if you have sex with me, I will make sure you get special privileges”
I don’t think you can consent or not consent. It is more complicated than that. The degree of consent surely should reflect on the degree of culpability.
Staghounds-
Complainants lie. Not all of them. Not even most of them. If I had to bet money I’d guess that 3 out of 4 are telling God’s own truth.
1 out of 4 makes for a lot of liars, though.
Is this where I throw a cheap shot about prosecutors being unwilling to file false-reporting charges unless they’re personally embarrassed somehow?
Fraser, all I can say is that you obviously do not understand the meaning of the word ‘consent’.
Alisa, I was more thinking of the “competent” part. If I am out with my wife and she has a few too many and when we get home, she “attacks” me and I oblige, I am a rapist?
Clearly, a moment’s thought shows that consent is a little more subtle than those who would make brash, absolute statements would imply but they make those statements and that’s really where the problem starts.
Robert, I’m sorry, but I don’t see the point in your example: if anyone would be a rapist in that case it would be your wife, no? Assuming you didn’t oblige, but yelled ‘no, no!’ to no avail?
Consent does not mean that someone “felt like doing” something, it merely means that he/she agreed to doing it under no threat of violence.
Alisa, assume I’m sober (designated driver and all that). The “competent” part has been predicated on being sober. The assertion is that if a woman is not sober, it’s rape, always.
And why do people keep calling me Robert? You’re not the first…
Sorry Richard, it’s just that you look so much like another Robert I’ve never seen:-)
Just to avoid further confusion: do you or do you not agree with that assertion? Because I don’t.
In reply to Laird’s 09:55 comment
I think there has been a misunderstanding, I basically agree with what you say in this comment.
Consent can be withdrawn at any point during a sexual encounter but it cannot be retroactively withdrawn. You are also completely correct that it is not always clear when someone has crossed the line between capable and incapable, and it is often difficult for others to make this judgement.
However I do think it is correct to say that if an individual is in any doubt that the person they would like to have sex with is capable of giving consent then they should not have sex with them.
In reply to Richard’s 09:58 comment
I’d love to hear your sarcastic reply!
There are a few things wrong with my definition. First it supposes that sex takes place between two people, also it asserts that its rape only in the case that both parties don’t consent.
Here’s a revised definition:
If n people have sex and m>0 of them do not give clear, unambiguous, competent and fully informed consent then those m people have been raped.
If anyone has a problem with that definition I’d love to find out what it is.
Alisa, I do not agree with that assertion which is why I said that the statement that I quoted was ridiculous since that is what it implies.
Robert, that definition may be fairly reasonable for people who are just getting to know each other but for longer term partners, things are somewhat different and more subtle. No always means no, of course (though may sometimes be turned to a yes without violating anyone’s rights) but there is a lot to be said for known ground rules and expectations without requiring explicit consent.
As for the sarcastic response, sorry, its effectiveness has been extremely deflated by my explanation to Alisa so another time, perhaps…
In reply to Laird’s 10:07 comment
The following statements all make sense to me:
1) If I violently attack you and take your money then I have stolen from you.
2) If I threaten you with violence and thus induce you to give me your money then I have stolen from you.
3) If I lie to you and claim I am Henry Kissinger and you pay me money for a speaking engagement as a result then I have stolen from you.
4) If I lie to you about my age and thus induce you to give me money (perhaps you wish to help a young person complete their education) then I have stolen from you.
All the examples above seem to me to be examples of stealing. When then would you have a problem with the following?
1) If I violently attack you and force you to have sex with me then I have raped you.
2) If I threaten you with violence and thus induce you to have sex with me then I have raped you.
3) If I lie to you and claim that I am Henry Kissinger and thus induce you to have sex with me then I have raped you.
I’m going to speculate now. When people think of rape they seem to have in their mind what might be called “The Canonical Rape”. That is a lone woman is attacked by a strange man (or men), dragged down a dark alley and subjected to a brutal violent assault. The further an attack gets from this the less of a rape it is. Clearly (the thinking goes) an underage woman lying to an older man about her age and thus inducing him to have sex with her is about as far from The Canonical Rape as you can get, and it is therefore absurd to consider it rape. But it is rape.
Sorry for deflating, Richard:-)
Robert, is it? Without advocating this position, perhaps the term “rape” has been stretched to cover circumstances which it really shouldn’t have. Perhaps it would be better to come up with a different term to describe those things which are not what you think of when you hear the word “rape”. For example, it seems to me that “Statutory rape” is a perfect example of a word being used deliberately to produce an emotional reaction that might otherwise not be evinced from a straightforward viewing of the facts in evidence (Oh that Ian B were here to sound forth on puritanism).
No problem, Alisa. No doubt, as is so often the case, it seemed better in my head than written out in text anyway.
Robert, I have issues with both of your #3’s.
If I tell you that I am Henry Kissinger and you hire me to speak, and I actually deliver that speech, I have indeed “stolen” from you, but not in the same sense as if I robbed you at gunpoint. I have merely divested you of your money under false pretenses. You should be entitled to sue for a refund on the basis of fraud, but I doubt that you would argue that I should be incarcerated for many years over the incident. Theft by deception isn’t the same as armed robbery, and isn’t punished the same.
Similarly, if I convince some benighted woman to have sex with me because she believes I am Kissinger, the consent is real. The premises under which that consent was given may be erroneous, and (depending upon my performance) she may feel defrauded, but while there may be some crime of “receiving sex under false pretenses” I cannot agree with you that it is the same thing “rape”. Nor should the penalties be the same.
Kissinger the sex idol. I love Samizdata.
I love this debate. Let’s take it a step further, and expand on the Kissinger idea.
If say that I’m Kissinger, and a woman goes to bed with me on that basis, is it rape?
Of course it isn’t.
Just because someone misrepresents themselves, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the sex was consensual — even if the one party believed they were having sex with someone else.
Here’s the extension of this concept. Let’s say that I represent myself as a wealthy individual, and a woman — predisposed to having sex with wealthy men — then agrees to have sex with me. Upon waking up, she discovers that I am, in fact, not wealthy. Can she decide, then, that I raped her?
Of course she can’t.
And the simple reason for that is just as there is a clear definition of the degrees of theft — e.g. fraud versus armed robbery, which by the way carry entirely different punishments — there is also a clear distinction between sexual battery and “sex while confused”, and a pox on those who think that there is no difference between the two.
So the fake Mr. Kissinger and I, whatever our faults, did not commit rape: we committed fraud.
I should point out that the decision to prosecute fraud is not a civil one; it is a criminal one.
Yeah; let’s add to the list of heinous crimes that of passing off a borrowed Ferrari as one’s own, in order to seduce impressionable women.
Jesus wept.
By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying –
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.
— Dorothy Parker
That was a sane woman.