njhartsh

Rod Blagojevich (bla-GOY-uh-vitch) is a Democrat.

- Nathan, former Illinoisan

Loren Pechtel

I certainly would not count it as rape.

Loren Pechtel

The key issue is "immediately".

fatherphil

perhaps all this could lead to folks taking a more responsible approach to how they conduct their sex lives. that could only be a positive thing in our world, wouldn't you all agree.

AquaVita

Perhaps. But at what costs? Prison time for men who were engaging in consensual sex? Convicted on the arbitrary and vague law that simply says "when they say no, stop."

How would you go about enforcing such a law, fatherphil?

Pyrrho

A rather curious aspect of this discussion is that many complain because of the difficulty of enforcement. Is anyone saying that it cannot become rape if it started out as consensual? If it really is rape, then why object to calling it rape and having an appropriate penalty for it? If it is not really rape, then say so explicitly, rather than discuss the difficulties of enforcement. Rape is often difficult to prove when there was never any consent for any sexual contact. Are any of you seriously going to suggest that there should be no laws against rape because of the difficulty in enforcing such laws?

Edited to add:

If your problem is with laws regarding evidence at trials only, then say so, but don't complain about the law saying that sex can become rape even if it started out as consensual, because that is irrelevant to the issue of what counts as evidence in a trial.

sergeyvladimirovich

I would suggest that if a law cannot be enforced, it is not only useless but dangerous too. Severity of the crime is irrelevant.

The "change of mind" law is impossible to enforce. Suppose I have sex with a girl and she says "no" and I don't stop. So she comes to court and says what happenned. The only thing they have against me is DNA in my semen. I could either defend myself by saying that when she said "no" I was ejaculating or by saying that we already had an intercourse when she said "no". Disproving me would be very hard, unless there was recording equipment in the room.

sergeyvladimirovich

This actually does make sense. Difficulty of enforcement is separate from the issue of an act being rendered legal/illegal.

Pyrrho

Indeed, it is a separate issue. We can illustrate this very well with a hypothetical example. Suppose there is an agreement between two people to have sex. Suppose further that they decide to videotape their performance. Suppose, during intercourse, one decides to stop having sex, and says so. The other one does not stop. Later on at the trial, the jury sees the videotape as evidence. Suppose they see that the person who said they did not want to continue was very clear, but the other person continued, regardless of any protestations or struggles. Suppose that sex continued for 20 minutes this way. Now, should such a thing be regarded as rape, and punished as such? If so, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with saying that something that starts out as consensual can become rape.

If one has a problem with it in other cases due to lack of evidence, then that is a separate issue to be dealt with when laws are made regarding what is legally sufficient evidence. It would make no sense to say that it is wrong to have a law against rape when one really sees a problem with legally sufficient evidence.

Arken

But, Pyrrho, this law was based upon a case in which there was nothing but one person's word against another making your hypothetical situation inappropriate to the law as it was formed.