rape and consent

[mellowtigger]

What's given is not the same as what's taken.

With the Roman Polanski case in the news recently, I've seen a lot of online chatter about rape and consent. I have opposing thoughts on the issue, and I thought that exploring them through writing might help me achieve a single coherent stance. At the end, I discuss my own history on this topic.

Comments

[mellowtigger]

"Statutory rape" is a term that seems to mean, "It's not really rape, it's just a legal technicality that we have to pursue." If it's not really rape, then it shouldn't use the word at all.

"Molestation" is a term that seems to mean, "Something inappropriate that wasn't actually sex." I figure that term can still be kept, although my definition of it could use some improvement.

I want to eliminate the confusion and prosecute only those situations that really are "rape rape", with additional punishment for rapes committed against young humans lacking the legal ability to consent.

[bluebear2]

In Canada it's legally called "Sexual Assault". The word rape isn't used legally. (Not even for the plant which is now called Canola.)
Anyway, it's a term that reveals the violence of the act in the name. I don't know what would be worse than it if you needed a separate term to label a worser degree of it.

Re. consent. It can be so hard to know sometimes. It makes one not even bother at all sometimes.