A nation of rapists!

When I was younger, it was very clear what rape was. Sexual intercourse accomplished by the use of force against a non-consenting victim. Things were pretty clear then.

Now some people want to make it “rape” if a person lies in order to get laid.

A New Jersey lawmaker has a plan that would make it a crime to lie in order to sleep with someone.

As CBS2’s Jessica Schneider reported, Assemblyman Troy Singleton (D-Mount Laurel) calls it “rape by fraud.”

Women and even men have been lured into relationships with people who aren’t who they say they are.

“You probably would not consent to someone who purported to be a million different things other than they are,” Singleton said.

The assemblyman has introduced a bill that would make lying to get someone to have sex equal to rape.

“We think it is important to folks to be protected and this is just another way to provide that protection,” he said.

One of the bill’s supporters expounds on why the law is needed:

“He lied about his marital status, he lied about his education. He said he had a bachelor’s in accounting from NYU and was, in fact, a high school dropout,” Short said.

At least five states already make it a crime to have sex by fraud, but some make it a lesser offense than rape.

But some say it should be a matter of personal responsibility, not a case for the prosecutor.

Personal responsibility? Are you kidding?

“He lied about his marital status,”

So… I guess a man who takes off his wedding ring to pick up a woman in a single’s bar becomes a rapist.

A woman who falsely says she isn’t married, or is divorced?

Or how about a man saying he voted for Obama in order to score with a liberal woman?

I’m reminded of a recent post discussing an impostor who pretended to be film director Stanley Kubrick in order to pick up young men he fancied. Obviously, the guy was a sleazebag, but for the life of me, I am having trouble seeing his sex partners as rape victims. Because if they are, then you have to posit that they really didn’t want to have sex with him at all, but only did so in the hope of career advancement. Which would mean that had the man actually been Kubrick, the same apparently voluntary — yet not genuinely wanted — sex acts would not have constituted rape. What would they have been, then? Prostitution? If so, would that make a man who hires a call girl for sex but his credit card bounces a rapist? I’m willing to allow that this is theft of sexual services, but I just can’t see it as rape, for the simple reason that consent to sex was given.

Otherwise, anyone could later decide that he or she just wasn’t comfortable with the overall outcome, and claim rape.

If you think that’s bad, read the post M. Simon linked not long ago, which posits that all PIV sex (and presumably all sex involving penetration) is rape. (An old issue, which can be debated from a PostModernist standpoint.)