[Trigger Warning] Rapists Explain Themselves on Reddit

[Iulus Cofield]

Jezebel: Rapists Explain Themselves on Reddit, and We Should Listen

Spoiler:

Rapists and would-be rapists are opening up about "the other side of the story" — theirs — on a massive Reddit thread about the motivations behind sexual assault. The conversations range from exasperating to disturbing, and the whole of it may make you want to roll your eyes in disgust. But you shouldn't dismiss the thread as mere rape apologia. There's plenty of that, sure, but there's also a lot more to it.
Yesterday, a Redditor solicited stories of sexual assault from assailants. "Reddit's had a few threads about sexual assault victims, but are there any redditors from the other side of the story?" he asked. "What were your motivations? Do you regret it?"

Given the disturbingly high amount of men's rights activists and rape apologist Redditors — a recent Reddit thread counted the many, many ways the site is "anti-women" — it's easy to see why some would be skeptical about the possibility for productive discussion. "In other words: Yeah, yeah, enough about rape victims, let's hear from the REAL VICTIMS here: the POOR MENZ," Shit Reddit Says lamented. A commenter added, "The thought that my rapist is PROBABLY a redditor and could very well be getting patted on the back RIGHT NOW by HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE for relating how rough raping me was for him is making me literally nauseous."

But it's impossible to talk about the reasons people rape without involving rapists in the discussion. Rapists aren't hiding in the bushes: around two-thirds of rapes are committed by someone known to the victim, and 73 percent of sexual assaults are perpetrated by a non-stranger. It's a mistake to think we're justifying rapists' actions by listening to their stories. Some of them are tough to read, but their brutal honesty effectively illustrates how a lack of communication and education perpetuates rape culture. Ignoring or dismissing these men (and women) out of hand may be an effective coping strategy for a given individual, but not for society. It gets us nowhere.

So why'd they do it? What were they thinking? Here are some of the reasons why rapists said they raped or almost raped from the original thread.

(What they perceive as) mixed messages:

She ran to my bed and didn't want me to touch her. I didn't understand what had happened. This hypersexual person who had offered to give me head suddenly didn't want to touch me.

...
Peer Pressure:
...
Biology (The "I can't help my dick!" argument):
...
Women are objects for the taking:

Ended up happening again after a party. She was a good friend. I was drunk and super horny. I looked at her and knew I could never be with her. She had already hooked up with my friend. It was that feeling of never being able to do something, or have something. I looked at her and just saw something I would regret not trying for. So I thought if I could feel her I would know what it was to be with her. I grabbed her boob, over the shirt. I touched her lip and she moved her head. I stop dead thinking I woke her up, but she relaxed again. I started going upstairs but felt a sudden urge to lift her skirt. I ran my hand across her ass and between her legs. I was so drunk I turned on the light to get a better look, then quickly realized that it would wake her up and turned the light off.

...
Bad influences:

I was an extremely isolated youth who came from a broken home. My escape was the internet. At about sixteen I was exposed to alot of PUA material, which (not having a father or mother really around) shaped my life up until I was about 20. Most of the material was very objectifying and sexually aggressive towards women.

...
Multiple men said that they didn't end up going as far as they had intended once they actually looked the woman they were with in the face:

I'm a good man. I have a wife and a couple of kids now and I'm a good father and husband. I'm a pretty moral guy. But I think the thing that has always stuck with me...is how close I came to actually doing it. If I hadn't looked up at her face and seen what she was feeling, I might have continued. In my mind, at the time, she wanted it. I can remember staring at the ceiling while on the couch thinking "in a couple of minutes she's going to come out here and get on top of me."

...
It's very clear that many of these people didn't feel like what they were doing was wrong because they didn't (and/or still don't) think of themselves as rapists. Rapists are the scary strangers hiding in the bushes. Rapists don't feel remorse. Rapists prey on pure girls, not sluts who show cleavage and want to fool around. Some even say that straight up; "I didn't want to be the kind of guy who pressured girls, so I said it was fine [when she asked if she could stop performing oral sex]," says a man who had literally just pressured a girl who had "always been quite flirty" to go down on him.

Many stories end with Redditors expressing how horrible they feel about what happened:

I have never in my life felt as shitty and depressed as when she told me that she felt what happened was rape. The depression made me have to drop out of school and go live back home. My parents thought I was gonna try to kill myself so I started taking medication and going to therapy and it actually helped a little. I'm over my depression now but I never, and will never, feel as low as I did because of that night.

...
It's not hard to see why some people would dismiss this thread as a circle jerk of rape apologists, especially because some quality Redditors assured the storytellers that "it's not your fault." (This is Reddit, after all.) And certainly this isn't light reading for everyone. But I think it's a mistake to write it off. Charlotte Shane put it well in a recent essay for The New Inquiry on moving past rape by being able to talk about it in non-victimizing terms:

...our culture is unable to address rape with the sobriety and clarity the topic deserves because we are still unable to address sex with the sobriety and clarity it deserves. The contention that rape should be regarded as an asexual act has done nothing to remedy this. Nor will it. As activist and writer Wendy McElroy points out, "there can be as many motives for rape as there are for murder and other violent crimes … Rape is every bit as complex." Insisting that no rape is ever "about" sex but is rather about an individual man acting on a patriarchal mandate to sow terror by exercising "power" does a disservice to us all.

This sorry state of affairs should foster honest conversation, not suppress it. We should not be so desperate to establish the seriousness of rape that we stigmatize intelligent discussion of it.

...
Nothing will change if we discuss rape culture in a vacuum. Taking the discussion beyond that vacuum, however, means opening it up to a wider audience that isn't necessarily sympathetic. Reddit may not be the best place for that, but it's certainly a start — and that's important. It's in these less-protected, less-sacred spaces where the conversation is needed the most.

Original Reddit thread: "Reddit's had a few threads about sexual assault victims, but are there any redditors from the other side of the story? What were your motivations? Do you regret it?"

[hawkinsssable]

It seems like the Jezebel article is saying something obvious but necessary. "Rape doesn't occur in a vacuum, and if we think of rapists, or even paedophiles, like we think of Hitler - ultimate evil, driven by evil, purely evil, so evil that to even think about anything except for how evil he was unacceptably diminishes his evil - we're never really going to understand it." Victoria seems to be fixated on crimes involving sex and crimes involving children and especially crimes involving sex with children, and love to talk about how no punishment can possibly be harsh enough (life imprisonment in every case has been brought up a few times) or whether we should suppress the identities of sex offenders or open them up to the public and, essentially, celebrate any vigilante actions against them. A judge sentencing sex offenders has claimed "every paedophile is guilty" and "all sex offenders should be thrown on to an island and left to starve to death", yet was cleared for sentencing. It's like sex offenders = evil, and we can't actually talk about the issue beyond that without somehow downplaying the horror of the crime.

These ideas / this discursive framework, I'd guess, might actually cause some damage of its own and actually contribute to something the Jezebel article identified:

It's very clear that many of these people didn't feel like what they were doing was wrong because they didn't (and/or still don't) think of themselves as rapists. Rapists are the scary strangers hiding in the bushes. Rapists don't feel remorse. Rapists prey on pure girls, not sluts who show cleavage and want to fool around... We have to acknowledge that the people telling these stories and making these decisions are the men (and women) next door, not necessarily inhuman savages. Otherwise, anti-rape campaigns will continue to tell victims to dress and act differently as a matter of "prevention," college campuses will continue to report high rates of sexual assault, and people will continue to take advantage of others without even looking them in the eye while doing so.

The Reddit thread itself, though? ... fuck. I feel ill having skimmed through some of the worst (at least, I really really hope they're the worst) parts of it.

EDIT: actually I don't have anything worthwhile to say and feel like even posting that ^ is disrespectful. The 99 people who viewed the thread without posting before me had it right.

[Zamfir]

This is obviously a sensitive topic. Keep that in mind before posting

[felltir]

Reddit is currently down, and I will not discuss this until I can read the source. Will edit later.

Edit: Nope! Thought I might be able to, but simply can't. Xiao.

[CorruptUser]

People can justify anything in their own mind.

For example, most murderers will justify in some saying the person deserved it, in order to avoid admitting as much blame as possible. It's why those people tend to be extremely violent towards mass murderers; sure, a hitman may have killed 20 people, but they were only other hitmen and thus fair game, but that mass murderer? Those people were innocent, clearly that mass murderer was evil incarnate while I'm just a basically good guy that was deal a bad hand in life. For rapists, the rationalization can be that I deserve it, why should every asshole but me get it, what does that douchebag she's with have that I don't, why is she being so mean for denying me what I deserve, and so forth.

The real horror isn't that rapists will rationalize it in their own minds, it's that most us already do that rationalization in some form or another. It's also part of why the Reddit thing is so terrifying to use; it's easier to think that rapists are nothing more than vicious beasts in human-shape than as humans.

See a homeless guy on the street, but don't want to give any money? Well, I don't have to help him, I have enough problems, that person probably drank their way to the street so why should I have to give anything? Want to make a fortune in a business deal, but it will cause people to lose their jobs? Well, it's progress, I'm making money so I'm benefiting society more than they were, these people were union jerks who shot their own feet, maybe if they weren't so lazy they would still have jobs, etc. Taking more welfare benefits than you need? Well, I deserve it, those rich assholes can afford a few extra taxes, everyone else is abusing the system so why shouldn't I take a little extra, and so on.

[Endless Mike]

Reddit is currently down, and I will not discuss this until I can read the source. Will edit later.

Cool, thanks for letting us know instead of just waiting until later!

On-topic: Fuck Reddit. There's literally no excuse.

[CorruptUser]

On-topic: Fuck Reddit. There's literally no excuse.

...learning how the minds of potential rapists work, so psychologists can more easily identify warning signs and thus help people before they commit rape, thus reducing the number of rapes?

It's the apologists that are more sickening IMHO.

[Endless Mike]

On-topic: Fuck Reddit. There's literally no excuse.

...learning how the minds of potential rapists work, so psychologists can more easily identify warning signs and thus help people before they commit rape, thus reducing the number of rapes?

It's the apologists that are more sickening IMHO.

Well, I meant there's no excuse for rape. I have no problems with it being discussed.

[Izawwlgood]

So, for starters, the thread itself has a number of posters who are extremely regretful of their past actions and have taken enormous effort to repair the damage they have done. The above link provided is to someone who does not fit that description.

Personally, I think it'd be very important to talk to these people. Understanding why this happens is worlds different from having sympathy for past perpetrators. The more people can communicate about this topic the better able we'll be to help the victims of it. That said, the thread is full of upsetting, horrifying accounts, and peppered with people who are remorseless.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

It's Reddit, so I'd take all those accounts with a shaker of salt. That being said, Reddit, being a large community, does not have the common sense not to have those kinds of discussions in a large sub. Still, there are lots of people circlejerking over who hates the rapists more and wants to kill them in the most gruesome way possible, ignoring the irony of their calls to violence.

One of the most-debated rape stories ends with the claim that it is posted from a throwaway and the poster could be any of the users, even the one right below him saying that his story was too "perfect" and fantasy-like to be a real story.

[lutzj]

This thread moved to the top of the front page just now.

From the original post of that thread, trigger warning for same reason as this thread but also substance abuse/compulsive behavior in general:

Spoiler:

Hi all. I'm a psychiatrist. My main area of clinical work is emergency psychiatry, and my main research interest is functional brain imaging. I'd like to start a discussion about the rapist thread, which I see as a serious danger. In a nutshell:
Rape is a crime which hinges directly on feelings of power over the victim.
That power often loses its meaning if the victim is unconscious. Many rapists typically need a victim who knows she is being victimized.
This victim is his audience. This is crucial.
The audience gives him his pleasure, euphoric delight from unfettered, witnessed suffering. That euphoria is intense and is driven by the same neurobiology involved in a drug high.
Now, when Reddit invites rapists to retell their stories, they offer an audience of thousands. The possibility that individuals reading these stories will be horrified afresh is very appealing to some rapists. It’s neurobiologically very much like anticipating drug use.
Note: the audience doesn’t actually need to be horrified. In the mind of the rapist, the possibility of horrifying an audience is what is appealing.
Ever wonder what makes addicts keep using? A major factor is the craving that comes from recalling the feelings associated with the pleasurable activity or drug. Cocaine addicts, active or in recovery, who are asked to think about using cocaine have measurable brain changes precisely when they report cravings. We haven't actually measured this in rapists, but we suspect it's highly analogous.
Thus, the Reddit rape forum is very likely triggering rape cravings in rapists.
It is also teaching rapists how to rape better via shared stories, the same way we teach new participants to improve in any field, by sharing our experiences.
I plan to be available to discuss this, so jump in.
(For those more curious about the guy behind the message, I'm a frequent guest on the Caustic Soda Podcast.)

[CorruptUser]

This thread moved to the top of the front page just now.

From the original post of that thread, trigger warning for same reason as this thread but also substance abuse/compulsive behavior in general:

Spoiler:

Hi all. I'm a psychiatrist. My main area of clinical work is emergency psychiatry, and my main research interest is functional brain imaging. I'd like to start a discussion about the rapist thread, which I see as a serious danger. In a nutshell:
Rape is a crime which hinges directly on feelings of power over the victim.
That power often loses its meaning if the victim is unconscious. Many rapists typically need a victim who knows she is being victimized.
This victim is his audience. This is crucial.
The audience gives him his pleasure, euphoric delight from unfettered, witnessed suffering. That euphoria is intense and is driven by the same neurobiology involved in a drug high.
Now, when Reddit invites rapists to retell their stories, they offer an audience of thousands. The possibility that individuals reading these stories will be horrified afresh is very appealing to some rapists. It’s neurobiologically very much like anticipating drug use.
Note: the audience doesn’t actually need to be horrified. In the mind of the rapist, the possibility of horrifying an audience is what is appealing.
Ever wonder what makes addicts keep using? A major factor is the craving that comes from recalling the feelings associated with the pleasurable activity or drug. Cocaine addicts, active or in recovery, who are asked to think about using cocaine have measurable brain changes precisely when they report cravings. We haven't actually measured this in rapists, but we suspect it's highly analogous.
Thus, the Reddit rape forum is very likely triggering rape cravings in rapists.
It is also teaching rapists how to rape better via shared stories, the same way we teach new participants to improve in any field, by sharing our experiences.
I plan to be available to discuss this, so jump in.
(For those more curious about the guy behind the message, I'm a frequent guest on the Caustic Soda Podcast.)

That assumes that all rapists are "power rapists", which isn't always the case.

[Gelsamel]

This goes along with the general stigma of equating understanding with sympathy or support. The OP mentioned the comparison to Hitler, so lets do that... Untill someone can read Mein Kampf without getting weird looks there is little hope in this world for progress. Until we can throw away this need to see the world in idealistic eyes, that evil is 'just evil' and good is 'just good'... until then we're fucked. This thread is a step in the right direction, not only for trying to understand the mind of the rapist, but also for trying to understand the mind of the rape apologist. Understanding noth of those things are important if we care about consciousness raising and dismantling this rape culture.

@CorruptUser: Actually I think the OP of that thread is yet another person who is equating the term "rape" with evil bush-hiding alleyway-assaulting violent rapists (which, I do believe is mostly about power and not about sex). Of course, not all rape takes that form, so not all rape is about power.

[Diadem]

This thread moved to the top of the front page just now.

From the original post of that thread, trigger warning for same reason as this thread but also substance abuse/compulsive behavior in general:

Spoiler:

Hi all. I'm a psychiatrist. My main area of clinical work is emergency psychiatry, and my main research interest is functional brain imaging. I'd like to start a discussion about the rapist thread, which I see as a serious danger. In a nutshell:
Rape is a crime which hinges directly on feelings of power over the victim.
That power often loses its meaning if the victim is unconscious. Many rapists typically need a victim who knows she is being victimized.
This victim is his audience. This is crucial.
The audience gives him his pleasure, euphoric delight from unfettered, witnessed suffering. That euphoria is intense and is driven by the same neurobiology involved in a drug high.
Now, when Reddit invites rapists to retell their stories, they offer an audience of thousands. The possibility that individuals reading these stories will be horrified afresh is very appealing to some rapists. It’s neurobiologically very much like anticipating drug use.
Note: the audience doesn’t actually need to be horrified. In the mind of the rapist, the possibility of horrifying an audience is what is appealing.
Ever wonder what makes addicts keep using? A major factor is the craving that comes from recalling the feelings associated with the pleasurable activity or drug. Cocaine addicts, active or in recovery, who are asked to think about using cocaine have measurable brain changes precisely when they report cravings. We haven't actually measured this in rapists, but we suspect it's highly analogous.
Thus, the Reddit rape forum is very likely triggering rape cravings in rapists.
It is also teaching rapists how to rape better via shared stories, the same way we teach new participants to improve in any field, by sharing our experiences.
I plan to be available to discuss this, so jump in.
(For those more curious about the guy behind the message, I'm a frequent guest on the Caustic Soda Podcast.)

That assumes that all rapists are "power rapists", which isn't always the case.

I agree. What the psychiatrist writes might be true for a subset of rapists. But most rapists are of a different type. The type who rationalized and excuses it for themselves, who might not even realize that what they are doing is really, really wrong. It seems to me that that group might gain a little understanding from threads like these. Plus, society as a whole might.

Understanding why this happens is worlds different from having sympathy for past perpetrators.

I disagree. I do not think it is possible to fully understand someone and not feel sympathy towards that person. No matter what they did. No person is black or white. People aren't black and white, even the most rotten people have a complex internal landscape of feelings that makes them do what they do, with good and bad traits, and reasons for how they turned out as they did. Of course that does not mean you should forgive them. Or that you should condone what they did. Nor does it require remorse on their side.

[Gelsamel]

I disagree. I do not think it is possible to fully understand someone and not feel sympathy towards that person. No matter what they did. No person is black or white. People aren't black and white, even the most rotten people have a complex internal landscape of feelings that makes them do what they do, with good and bad traits, and reasons for how they turned out as they did. Of course that does not mean you should forgive them. Or that you should condone what they did. Nor does it require remorse on their side.

I meant sympathy towards their actions.

The whole idea that one can come to understand someone else is predicated on idea that they're humans just like everyone else and that no one is "just evil".

[CorruptUser]

The whole idea that one can come to understand someone else is predicated on idea that they're humans just like everyone else and that no one is "just evil".

Not 'just like everyone else', but yes on the idea that real life is more complex than Good v Evil. No one is evil incarnate (Kony started out as a guardian) nor is anyone a shining paragon of virtue (Gandhi was slightly racist). People make the world better or worse for having been in it, "good" and "evil" are just oversimplifications we use to try and train children (and many adults) to grow into people that make the world better.

[Gelsamel]

And yet it's that false dichotomy of a narrative that perhaps causes most of the suffering in the world.

[XJ_0]

I wanted to bring this here because I thought is was a well-written post, and is helping me to think more about rape and how to assign blame.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/x6yef/reddits_had_a_few_threads_about_sexual_assault/c5kcdt3

[Sizik]

There need's to be another word for "rape", like how we have "murder" and "kill".

[Iulus Cofield]

There are several synonyms.

[CorruptUser]

There need's to be another word for "rape", like how we have "murder" and "kill".

"Rape" is that other word. "Murder" means unlawful killing. "Rape" means unlawful fornicating.

[Dark Avorian]

There need's to be another word for "rape", like how we have "murder" and "kill".

"Rape" is that other word. "Murder" means unlawful killing. "Rape" means unlawful fornicating.

Okay, I'm not sure I agree with this, but I think it's pretty clear what it means. The better analogy would be murder vs. manslaughter.

Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide (such as manslaughter).

I'm not saying that rape is something that needs to be divided into "real rape" and "not-so-real rape." But perhaps one of the problems with the discussion about rape is that "rape" as a term is almost always interpreted by the general public as closer to murder than manslaughter.

[CorruptUser]

But perhaps one of the problems with the discussion about rape is that "rape" as a term is almost always interpreted by the general public as closer to murder than manslaughter.

And that's a problem because...?

[Princess Marzipan]

Because with a public so wholly uneducated on what rape is, it's actually very easily conceivable that someone could commit the act without realizing they're doing it? And maybe if we can admit that there are varying levels of severity and intent, we can finally classify the less severe or intentional cases as rape without demonizing the individuals who've committed them?

[yurell]

Personally, I'm more fond of just having much broader categories of 'sexual assault' and 'unlawful killing', with the punishment based on severity, without differentiating between 'types'.

[Dark Avorian]

Because with a public so wholly uneducated on what rape is, it's actually very easily conceivable that someone could commit the act without realizing they're doing it? And maybe if we can admit that there are varying levels of severity and intent, we can finally classify the less severe or intentional cases as rape without demonizing the individuals who've committed them?

Hit the nail on the head there. The fact of the matter is that current discourse lumps all rapists together, from scary-leap-out-of-bushes-rapists, to abusive-partner-rapists, to people who sleep with a drunk person and take advantage of them without understanding that that really is rape (and it really is, at least in our current language, and the plight of the victim shouldn't be minimized). And that is disturbing to people, that the thing they did without really understanding the terrible implications might be considered deserving of the same view of the perpetrator as someone who carefully planned it and just didn't care about the implications.

If we as a society are ever to move, I think we need to manage the clever balancing act of insuring that no rape victim feels that what happened to them is being minimized or tossed in some lesser category, but simultaneously making a distinction between the perpetrators in the same way we do in every other crime.

[CorruptUser]

Because with a public so wholly uneducated on what rape is, it's actually very easily conceivable that someone could commit the act without realizing they're doing it? And maybe if we can admit that there are varying levels of severity and intent, we can finally classify the less severe or intentional cases as rape without demonizing the individuals who've committed them?

I thought we already do that, with things like statutory rape, rape by deception, and whatever the term is for a superior pressuring a subordinate into sex (rape by coercion?).

EDIT: upon a bit of wikisearching, rape by deception is not recognized in most places. What the fuck, world?

[BlackSails]

EDIT: upon a bit of wikisearching, rape by deception is not recognized in most places. What the fuck, world?

Thats because 100% honesty is not really something particularly common (or wanted for that matter)

[CorruptUser]

Look, I understand that the courts don't want to (nor should) have to deal with people pressing charges due to, *ahem*, unmentioned inadequacies in bed, but impersonating your twin brother to sleep with your sister-in-law is most definitely rape.

[Iulus Cofield]

Didn't Revenge of the Nerds teach that situation is actually hilarious?

Because it taught me to completely reexamine every movie I watched as a child with "WTF is wrong with the world" colored glasses.

[BlackSails]

Look, I understand that the courts don't want to (nor should) have to deal with people pressing charges due to, *ahem*, unmentioned inadequacies in bed, but impersonating your twin brother to sleep with your sister-in-law is most definitely rape.

Sure, and we could have a long discussion about what is and isnt rape by deception, but thats sort of off topic.

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

Look, I understand that the courts don't want to (nor should) have to deal with people pressing charges due to, *ahem*, unmentioned inadequacies in bed, but impersonating your twin brother to sleep with your sister-in-law is most definitely rape.

Sure, and we could have a long discussion about what is and isnt rape by deception, but thats sort of off topic.

We don't need a repeat of the "man charged with rape because he told someone he was Jweish when he wasn't" drama. Besides, whatever happened to "trust but verify"? Then again, there is a huge difference between lying to a question asked and presenting a deceptive image of yourself and no one questioning it.

[HungryHobo]

We don't need a repeat of the "man charged with rape because he told someone he was Jweish when he wasn't" drama. Besides, whatever happened to "trust but verify"? Then again, there is a huge difference between lying to a question asked and presenting a deceptive image of yourself and no one questioning it.

combined with the problem that if you criminalise misrepresenting yourself then you've got the old russian black market problem.

"you told him you were a professional model, turns out you just take myspace angle photos of yourself and turn them black and white for your facebook. off to jail with you"

"You said you were single but weren't, off to jail"

"you said you were a [insert impressive high paid profession you dream of being in] when you're really [boring vaguely related one], off to jail"

Even the more extreme ones: "I'm not really a banker from detroit called Earl, I was born Jerry and I'm actually a plumber from france" don't seem reasonable to criminalise.

About the only example I can think of where it might be reasonable is the earlier mentioned twin example and that's unrealistic because anyone who knows twins well will rarely have any trouble whatsoever telling the 2 apart.

[yurell]

Not to mention how 'rape by deception' rulings can discriminate against trans* people

[Princess Marzipan]

Because with a public so wholly uneducated on what rape is, it's actually very easily conceivable that someone could commit the act without realizing they're doing it? And maybe if we can admit that there are varying levels of severity and intent, we can finally classify the less severe or intentional cases as rape without demonizing the individuals who've committed them?

I thought we already do that, with things like statutory rape, rape by deception, and whatever the term is for a superior pressuring a subordinate into sex (rape by coercion?).

EDIT: upon a bit of wikisearching, rape by deception is not recognized in most places. What the fuck, world?

See, if our culture and/or legal system differentiated these instances more clearly, you wouldn't have to say things like what I bolded and discussion would be much clearer.

Again, most of the populace has the idea in their head of "rape" as a thing violent strangers do in back alleys. And that does happen, but it's really not what most rapes are like. Differentiating types would go a long way toward clarifying for the public at large that there are different degrees, and that saying "I was raped" does not actually mean "I was violently physically forced into sex" in all cases.

[Роберт]

Rape by deception seems to me like it should be criminal, but "rape by deception" to me would be impersonating someone else, not lying/deceiving the other person about yourself. So if you let the other person believe that you were cis when you weren't, that's not rape (although I do think lying about yourself is terrible). But if you impersonate Justin Bieber to get sex, that's rape.

[HungryHobo]

But if you impersonate Justin Bieber to get sex, that's rape.

gets more tricky with people with genuinely similar names and appearances ("Justine! Is that really you!?!?" "um... ya?") and professional celebrity impersonators who someone takes too seriously. ("He said he was elvis!")

[Роберт]

But if you impersonate Justin Bieber to get sex, that's rape.

gets more tricky with people with genuinely similar names and appearances ("Justine! Is that really you!?!?" "um... ya?") and professional celebrity impersonators who someone takes too seriously. ("He said he was elvis!")

That's what courts are for.

[HungryHobo]

That's what courts are for.

Still just sounds like an little more than a mess.

On the one hand "impersonating someone else" would cover introducing yourself as Bill the banker(who the person doesn't know or may not exist) when you're really Joe the Plumber too. Which doens't really make sense to criminalise. sometimes people want to be someone else for a while and there's nothing wrong with that. It's still lying about your identity but when you're just assuming a persona what difference does it make? you're still the person they're just meeting today and they don't know Bill the banker and have no relationship with Bill the banker .

On the other hand we've got, say, dressing up as someones spouse or lover which is on the clearly wrong side but is also more the domain of the plots of bad movies than things which actually come up much.

[Роберт]

That's what courts are for.

Still just sounds like an little more than a mess.

On the one hand "impersonating someone else" would cover introducing yourself as Bill the banker(who the person doesn't know or may not exist) when you're really Joe the Plumber too. Which doens't really make sense to criminalise. sometimes people want to be someone else for a while and there's nothing wrong with that. It's still lying about your identity but when you're just assuming a persona what difference does it make? you're still the person they're just meeting today and they don't know Bill the banker and have no relationship with Bill the banker .

On the other hand we've got, say, dressing up as someones spouse or lover which is on the clearly wrong side but is also more the domain of the plots of bad movies than things which actually come up much.

I tried to make it clear, but apparently didn't, that impersonating someone else meant impersonating a non-fictional someone else: a real person that the victim knows about.

So your Bill the Banker scenario (which I find completely unethical) would not fall into that category of rape.