PhilosophyTutor comments on Rational Romantic Relationships, Part 1: Relationship Styles and Attraction Basics - Less Wrong

48 Post author: lukeprog 05 November 2011 11:06AM

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Comment author: PhilosophyTutor 25 November 2011 03:20:22AM *  -2 points [-]

There are no shortage of cases from other jurisdictions of people convicted for obtaining sex by pretending to be someone else, and obtaining sex by threats not involving violence is specifically listed on this Australian government web site (see "The perpetrator bullied them, for example, by threatening to leave them in a deserted area at night").

It's also worth pointing out that the domain of what is legally considered rape is one that has expanded substantially over time, and does not seem likely to stop expanding. As one example, raping one's spouse was a contradiction in terms, legally speaking, until relatively recently even in the developed world. The criminalisation of spousal rape is generally seen as moral progress. Currently in most of the developed world you will only be charged with rape by deception if you mislead the victim about your identity or tell them to have sex with you for medical reasons (I guess that must have been way more of a problem than I would have guessed since it's addressed specifically), but there seems no fundamental reason to single out those forms of deception.

Myself I agree with High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein of Israel who argued that it should be a crime if a “person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him.” Currently many men believe that misleading women to obtain sex is "just how it is", and that it's not immoral to do so. I suspect that in the medium term this view will go the way of the view that spousal rape is "just how it is".

Comment author: Desrtopa 25 November 2011 03:24:38AM *  1 point [-]

“person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him.”

"No, I never raped that woman. I did lie to her about certain matters, as a result of which she chose to have sex with me, but she was clearly unreasonable."