POLL: Date rape pill and other such

That's essentially what I meant.

I would like to see any alcohol-powered seduction outlawed, but in practice it would be extremely hard to prove that someone had an express premeditated purpose of bedding the person whom he or she is watering with alcohol. Yet another problem is, as you say, the fact that adults should know their limits and that alcohol helps it but doesn't do the whole job. So yes, the abused person largely has himself or herself to blame. Here I agree.

However, when a man gives a woman drink after drink and she ends up too tipsy to realise that he (who is completely sober because such was the plan) is undressing her and starting his worst. Yes, she is negligent near to the point of willing stupidity (unless it's a friend or someone who otherwise abuses her trust), but it doesn't make the man any less culpable. In my eyes, he's not much different from a rapist.

Or when the woman refuses to have sex but the guy keeps deliberately soaking her with drinks until she stops saying no (probably when she's undressed and resistance looks pointless). It's hard to say she paid due caution and it was indeed stupid of her, but the guy is still an ugly player and the difference between him and a regular rapist is that he doesn't have the guts to go for the big thing. Until the time comes, that is.

As for dragging a depressed person to bed in order to take advantage of him/her under the guise of comforting, it's pretty much the same. Sure, not the same what violent rape is, but the difference is more in degree than in nature. Note: I'm not speaking of a situation where the first person really thinks he/she is comforting the other person or where the depressed person asks for it (not like any man worth the name would go for it without regard to the woman's real needs), but I'm speaking about players who put the depressed person's condition to their advantage. It takes a real bastard to add this kind of abuse to already hard to bear suffering. In my eyes, a guy who does that doesn't differ much from a rapist.

However, you are right that there would be a lot of room for abuse in such laws. There's already a lot of trouble with regular rape cases like when a woman wakes up in a man's bed and reports him for rape. If all sorts of bad ways other than force were outlawed, hysterical, vindictive or outright confabulating individuals would have a whole new field to conquer. Guess it would have to be handled with exceptional caution. At any rate, I think I'm still in favour of totally outlawing fraud and adding some penalties so long as it is proved beyond reasonable doubt. People defrauded this way should still have some recourse, even if they hadn't really been exceptionally prudent.

Well, and I insist that lying or playing any deceitful tricks in order to get sex is different from rape only in degree but not in nature, on a moral level. I don't mean enhancing one's appearance or making an illusion of being more important and wealthier than one really is or any such, but more direct things. Direct lies counted on obtaining sex where hearing the truth would make the target refuse. Example: you've almost dragged her to bed and she asks if you are single. You have someone, but you say you are so. She takes your word on that, is relieved and goes to bed with you. F-R-A-U-D. Same if girlfriend asks if you love her and you say you do even though you don't just because you want sex and she would refuse if you answered honestly. Fraud again. This would be insanely difficult to prove in a court because we can't read people's minds. But sometimes such things pop up in letters, e-mails, messages, whatever. Virtue is cheap these days, so that's why not many people seem to care, but what the guy does is still fraud. Not like a woman couldn't do that.

[ March 03, 2005, 22:10: Message edited by: chevalier ]

 

Some big problems with your ideas Chev'.

First of all, if you will say that using deception to coerce someone into having sex with you should be a crime, then logically we should be throwing nearly all salesmen into jail as well. The guy in the grocery store who takes advantage of my hunger, waving the samples of dlicious chedder cheese on crackers in my face, offering me one or two and all the while reminding me that I have children who deserve a "healthy snack" rather than the who-knows-what-kind-of-crap they are sneaking into their mouths, in order to coerce me into buying a block of chedder I would not otherwise buy.
What about the casinos who use all manner of unavoidable "persuasion" to wear down people who have mental and emotional problems and coerce them into gambling away their rent checks?

Often times people selling such things rely on outright lies to do so.

A better example are 'psychics' John Edward and Sylvia Browne. They make claims that are demonstrably false or cannot be substantiated and also prey on peoples' ignorance and emtional situations. They even take it one step further adn can actually SUE you for demonstrating how they do their tricks!

What about the girl who only sleeps with musicians and meets a guy who is dressed like a rock-star at a party? He has dressed this way with the express intention of bagging some chick. He is a roadie for a local band called "the Yankers" and he also plays drums(but not with the band) but when the girl asks him "Are you with a band?" he says "Yes. I am with The Yankers." and she asks "What instrument do you play?" and he says "The drums."?

Is he a rapist or a criminal seductionist?


The questions in your poll were much too ambiguous. I had to answer "no" to all just because the one or two I mighyt have answered "yes" to could be interpreted so many ways. I have indeed left my house(when I was a teenager) with the express intent of 'getting laid' before and while at a party offered a pretty girl I was talking to a beer or two and did indeed end up sleeping with them at some point.
Never did I sleep with an unconcious girl or one who could not walk under her own power and I could not tell you if any of the girls I slept with would not have slept with me had they not had beer/pot(I am not a psychic).

It seems by your evaluation, I may be a rapist!?

A lot of what I am saying in the above is simply that there are different types of "lies" and "fraud". Lies of ommision for example.
If I am reading you right, someone not disclosing their status of being married or HIV positive to obtain sex should be found guilty of the same crime(if I have you wrong here then my apologies)?

How would this be different from McDonalds not disclosing the unhealthy nature of their products to customers before they buy or the meat vender not telling potential customers up front the process by which hot dogs are made from animals?

 

What you describe is akin to people wearing make-up, learning how to dress to offset the imperfections of their figure, sound more educated than they are and so on and so forth. Nothing really wrong with that if they are doing it for the sake of better relationships with people and it isn't really fraud even if they are doing it to get laid. Direct lies are different, especially when it comes to important factors. Also, there's a huge difference in gravity between taking someone for a ride in the supermarket and tricking the person into sex.

In that case, they are already committing criminal fraud, whether it's called fraud or something lesser. Generally, it belongs to the fraudulent genre of crimes and is punishable under most jurisdictions.

You know, it would be sad for the judiciary to have to spend tax money on girls being so stupid as that one and making such idiotic claims, but yes, the guy is defrauding her at least on a moral level and I would have nothing against his deed being punishable, despite the stupidity of the "victim". It looks quite absurd, but the solution is as good as the example in this respect.

There was intended to be an emphasis on individual evaluation. If the respondent did something he considered tricking someone into sex (for example) was more important than if what he did had really been that.

One or two beers and "some point" is different from, let's saying, developing a plot to pour them a drink after drink while making sure you stay sober yourself, with the express intention of taking advantage of them later when they are sufficiently softened and too drunk to be able to concentrate for a second. Somehow, I can't see you doing that.

Come on, if they just had a beer or two with you and were able to walk straight and speak coherently, then it's their problem if they didn't like you as much in the morning as they did in the evening. You weren't drinking them under the table to shag them and leave them or anything. But there are guys who do that.

Yes and no. Yes because they both lie to the woman. No, because the HIV positive one also puts her life at risk to satisfy his urges which the married one does not. However, to put it on par with criminal seduction or rape by fraud (for lack of better term), it would have to be something like "Are you married?" "No, I am not" or "Are you HIV positive?" "No, I am not". This would make the guy quite close to a rapist in my eyes.

A reasonable person shouldn't really expect a giant bun with two lumps of fried minced beef and melted cheese to be healthy food. However, any extraordinary risks should be announced. Expired ingredients, old meat or from sick animals, repeated use of the same oil for frying things etc etc is already criminal not to announce (and likely illegal to sell anyway in many jurisdictions).

 

Hmm, I might have been reading into some of the things you were saying.

Will reflect and get back to this later(I hope).