December 2, 2018

"Abigail was right to be confused. Under her state’s law, what Grant did was not technically illegal..."

"... even though he later admitted that he knew Abigail wasn’t consenting to sex with him. That’s because in Indiana, sex only becomes rape when it’s compelled through force or threats, if the victim is mentally disabled and can’t properly consent, or if he or she is unaware that the sex is occurring. Abigail knew she was having sex. She just didn’t know it was with Grant.... When you have sex with someone, are you agreeing to sleep with just the physical entity before you? Or is it something bigger and more complex? Many people might think a man who deceives his sister-in-law into sex by pretending to be his identical twin should be prosecuted. But what of the man who deceives a woman by pretending to be some other fake, more successful — or even single — version of himself? And what of the legions of lies behind so many online dating profiles where people falsely advertise themselves using the scantest of information?"

From "She Thought She Was In Bed With Her Boyfriend, Until She Saw His Face/'I was like, I feel violated. This feels wrong. But I don’t know if it’s illegal'/This woman's case has exposed a loophole in rape laws" (BuzzFeed News).

ADDED: I puzzled over what's wrong with the sentence "Many people might think a man who deceives his sister-in-law into sex by pretending to be his identical twin should be prosecuted. " It's that there's no antecedent for "his." ADDED:  No. Wait. That's not the problem. The 2 "his"s refer to the man who you might think should be prosecuted. What's confusing is that we're not told who his identical twin is. We can infer that it's his sister-in-law's husband, of course, but you have to stop and think about it, and that's awkward, because of the "his"s.

76 comments:

Saint Croix said...

If you start prosecuting deceit as rape, a huge number of women would qualify as rapists.

It would, in my opinion, be a redefinition of the crime of rape.

Historically rape had always been a violent crime.

Logically, though, if you remove "force" from our definitions of rape, and "non-consent" is all you need for a rape charge, then sex-obtained-through deceit is rape.

Jed Rubenfeld wrote a fascinating law review article on this topic a few years ago.

Sharc 65 said...

Not even a close call here. Her loophole was exploited.

gilbar said...

he's not the man i thought he was
isn't this The Law on campus now?

IF a girl is out drinking, and hooks up with a guy; and she likes it: IT'S HER RIGHT TO BE A SLUT
IF a girl is out drinking, and hooks up with a guy; and she regrets it: IT'S RAPE

Laslo Spatula said...

"Many people might think a man who deceives his sister-in-law into sex by pretending to be his identical twin should be prosecuted."

The many people who say this do not have an identical twin.

I am Laslo.

Saint Croix said...

Yale held a forum on Rubenfeld's article, which is also quite interesting.

One of the response articles, by Professor Tom Dougherty, concludes: "(A)summing certain pragmatic worries could be assuaged, we should reluctantly accept that someone can be guilty of rape-by-deception by falsely saying he went to Yale."

Or, of course, "she said she loves me but she doesn't."

Under such a scenario, it would seem to me that every divorce would flirt with a rape trial, because divorce court often brings about allegations of deception.

"You were cheating on me and I didn't know about it so you raped me."

Nightmare for everybody. But hey, feminism.

gilbar said...

and, of course, i mean Slut in the good Slut Walk way.
Any woman can be with as many men as SHE wants, when SHE wants, how SHE wants.

If several days later, she decides that she regrets it; that she can retroactively withdraw her consent: which makes it RAPE! and she cries: "Pound Me Too!"

stevew said...

FYI: I wasn't confused by that sentence and the two "his"s until you explained that you found it confusing. On first reading I understood it to mean that he was impersonating his twin brother, who is Abigail's husband, to have sex with her. But if the men are identical twins how would seeing his face alert her that it's not her husband?

Terry di Tufo said...

There is an old joke about a man seeking a divorce. He tells the judge that his wife has a twin sister and he often finds that he is making love to the wrong woman. The judge stops him. “Sir, I don’t believe for a moment that there is no difference between your wife and her sister and that you can’t tell them apart.” The man replies “Of course there is a difference. That’s why I want the divorce.”

gilbar said...

okay, i've actually done the reading now; and i'm ready to be serious
A) don't leave your girlfriend sleeping in your bedroom alone with your drunk friends
B) too bad for Abigail that she foolish said that she wasn't drinking: otherwise it'd be RAPE!
C) maybe, just maybe If you're in a dorm room with a bunch of people and one of them f*cks you
i) you should think twice about it?
ii) you should open your eyes?
iii) if you Don't think about it, and Don't open your eyes, you should reevaluate who you are?

rhhardin said...

Do away with rape. Feminine modesty no longer exists so the crime no longer exists. Put it under assault and battery.

That cleans all these cases up.

Fernandinande said...

FYI: I wasn't confused by that sentence

The only thing wrong with that sentence is that it didn't have anything to do with the story of Abigail, the Girl Who Had Sex in a Room Full of Strange Men Without Checking to Which One She Was Fucking.

Fernandinande said...

Abigail is the kind of heavy sleeper who can ... have entire conversations with people and later not remember it.

IOW, Abigail has a serious mental problem.

Darrell said...

Cathy's been most everywhere, from Zanzibar to Barkley Square.
But Patty's only seen the sights a girl can see inside her tights,
What a crazy pair!

Identical cousins always had the boys guessing.

Lyssa said...

IMO, there’s a world of difference between pretending to be a distinct other person, who the victim know to exist, and telling lies about yourself (or even inventing a new character to play). Those two things aren’t even in the same ballpark and certainly shouldn’t be seen as similar crimes.

iowan2 said...

If you start prosecuting deceit as rape, a huge number of women would qualify as rapists.

Yes
What about all the women that lie about being on birth control. The goal of trapping a husband or just hooking a huge child support stipend. Pro athletes are going to be thrilled that they can now press criminal charges against these monster rapist that attack them almost everynight.

David Begley said...

Criminal statutes are strictly construed. He walks.

Why is this woman publicizing this?

Kevin said...

But what of the man who deceives a woman by pretending to be some other fake, more successful — or even single — version of himself?

What of the woman who changes her hair color, has plastic surgery, or wears makeup to change her appearance?

“Jian Feng and he said his issues with his wife’s looks only began after the couple’s daughter was born. Feng was appalled by the child’s appearance, calling her “incredibly ugly” and saying she resembled neither one of her parents.

With that being the case, Feng initially accused his wife of cheating. It was at that point that his wife, who has not been named, came forward, saying she had spent $100,000 on intense plastic surgeries to drastically change her appearance before she met Feng.

She never told Feng about those surgeries.

When Feng found out about the procedures, he filed the lawsuit. He said the woman convinced him to marry her under false pretenses.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/kdvr.com/2012/10/26/chinese-man-sues-wins-120000/amp/

stevew said...

Ok, Fernandistein, I went and read the article (I hate when I have to do that) and now am even more confused, but not by the sentence itself but why it is in the article at all! I guess it is offered as an example of another situation of mistaken/assumed identity sex, to illustrate the flaw in the law, but Abigail's experience is clear and does not require additional examples. Must have needed to fill column space.

David Begley said...

“In one of them, Tennessee, a man was found guilty of rape in 1996 after calling women while pretending to be their lovers and convincing them to strip naked, blindfold themselves, and await his arrival. “Tell me something that only you and I know,” one woman told him as he began to have sex with her, but she got no answer. Horrified, she lay frozen in terror as she realized the man wasn’t who she thought he was. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and now lives in Nashville.”

How did this guy convince these women? Didn’t they realize his voice was NOT the voice of their lovers?

I bet this guy is selling something by phone now. Or cars.

Amadeus 48 said...

Yipes! Sex by a trick! This is like something from Chaucer.
This never would have happened if she were holding out until marriage and sleeping in her own room.

Ann Althouse said...

"Identical cousins always had the boys guessing."

How many boys did Cathy and Patty rape in their evil little games, that's what I want to know.

Terry di Tufo said...

Thank you for coming back to the (non) grammatical issue. I no longer have to plan to ask friends to tell me what I was missing. The ambiguity of the sentence echoes the ambiguity of the case.

gilbar said...

Our Professor asks:
"How many boys did Cathy and Patty rape in their evil little games, that's what I want to know. "

Well, it was Heavily edited to get through the TV censors, so you had to read into it.

i seem to remember they dated the same guy at least once

Fernandinande said...

Ok, Fernandistein, I went and read the article (I hate when I have to do that)

Sorry! I usually hate it too. It was a terrible article but at least poor Grant didn't get convicted of Abigail's stupidity despite being thoroughly punished for it.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

The scandi countries have rape by deception. So this article is an attempt to bring that leftist idea here.

But we can stop this nonsense right now by claiming the idea is transphobic! What an intersectional Trainwreck that would be.

Fernandinande said...

"In 1938, a 23-year-old Frank Sinatra was arrested in Bergen County, N.J. on charges of seduction and adultery."

Bergen County?!?!? Hacken-shack?

++

"On the second and ninth days of November 1938 at the Borough of Lodi" and "under the promise of marriage" Sinatra "did then and there have sexual intercourse with the said complainant, who was then and there a single female of good repute." This, the charge stated, was "contrary and in violation of the revised statute of 1937."

The charges were later dismissed when it was determined that the woman involved was married.

++

gilbar said...

That didn't take long!

Cathy got sick, and Patty says: "I which i could switch with you, HEY WAIT A MINUTE!"
Then Patty says:"Going to the dance with him... It's The Least i could do"

By 'the least she could do', it's CLEAR that the More she could do would be after the dance, when the camera's were off, when Patty Rapes Cathy's Date

Darrell said...

Now let's dissect Patty Duke's British accent as Cathy. . .
Can we now give Dick Van Dyke some slack?

Meade said...

When I saw the Parent Trap in 1963 I fell in love with the actress. Haley something. But then when I saw the remake in 1998 I walked out of the theater shocked, sad and stultified. I felt I'd been emotionally raped by Lindsey Lohan.

gilbar said...

i (and LL) have just been ASSAULTED by Meade!
Parent Trap isn't just one of LL's best movies; it's WAY Better that Haley Mill's version (which is pretty close to perfect in itself).

I'd thought that Meade was someone i understood and knew.... RAPE!!!

Darrell said...

Brooklyn Heights High School probably had 180 students in Patty and Cathy's class, given the Baby Boom. Assuming 90 were males, it's not too much of a stretch to assume they catfished 85 of them. Then you have to consider multiple encounters. . . Even though it is not shown, I heard that Planned Parenthood opened a satellite branch right in the school.

FIDO said...

As always in sexuality, it is a One Way Street: only women have the right to be hurt, tricked, deceived assaulted.

If Abby didn't care enough to open her eyes to establish identity, she did not care.

So why should I?

This is the crux of the matter.

gilbar said...

FIDO said. If Abby didn't care enough to open her eyes to establish identity, she did not care.

Yes, back in the '80's she would have just thought it was funny, and bragged about it

gilbar said...

I'm saying this, because i Knew Women back in the '80's who did, and did

Meade said...

I looked at the map and notice Wisconsin is one of the "handful of US jurisdictions" that has a "rape by fraud" statute. You know, you really should have informed me of that, you being a Wisconsin law professor and all.

Sadly, this means no more playing "Moon-Spinners" for us, Nikki. As if your name really is "Nikki." (And I suppose you were just making that all up about your Aunt Frances being a "folk musicologist?")

I feel emotionally raped all over again.

FIDO said...

But these laws will also force us to interrogate the nature of sex and may fundamentally reshape our very understanding of it.

Translation: this is another wedge issue where we can suck up to women seeking to eschew all sexual responsibility and try to get more draconian sex laws against men in a political power play.

And I was wrong before: the crux of the issue is that there isn't any more clear consent than a woman inserting a penis into her own vagina.

She should check the penis before hand, of course, but that is WAY too much work, amirite?

Granted Grant is a shit. So is her boyfriend.

Oops...sorry. I was applying patriarchal and chivalric standards. Under the new rules, bf owes her NO protection.

Welcome to the world you are asking for, ladies.

Paco Wové said...

"Many people might think..."

I think...

The people that sign my paychecks think...

Ralph L said...

ADM John McCain, who'd married a twin, when asked if he sometimes confused his wife and SIL, said, "That's their problem."

So that hot dog that makes her lose control wasn't a real hot dog?

gilbar said...

Fido said...And I was wrong before: the crux of the issue is that there isn't any more clear consent than a woman inserting a penis into her own vagina.
She should check the penis before hand, of course, but that is WAY too much work, amirite?


next morning (in the '80's), funny story! i thought it was You sleeping next to me, and i rolled over and inserted Grant's penis into my own vagina.. Ha HA!

and the boyfriend says (in the '80's) HA HA! the EXACT SAME thing happened to ME, with your room mate!! HA HA!

together: HA HA !

FIDO said...

This reads like a Penthouse Letter. Excuse me: a Harlequin Gothic Bodice Ripping Drama.

All that is missing is the blinding orgasm from the guilty sex and 30 pages of guilty longing for Grants shitty assertiveness.

Women fiction: full of rape and adverbs.

tcrosse said...

Donald Westlake wrote "Two Much" in 1989. In it, a gallerist named Art Dodge falls in love with two sisters. He invents a fictitious twin brother Bart and marries both of them. At one point Art "cheats" with Bart's wife. Hilarity ensues. Film versions were made in France and the US.

rehajm said...

So that hot dog that makes her lose control wasn't a real hot dog?

Patty Duke Show joke- heh.

Amadeus 48 said...

Good heavens, Meade, I am getting way too much information about shenanigans at Meadehouse.

Amadeus 48 said...

Lindsey Lohan had a lot going for her, and she blew it. Those parents messed her up. You don’t want a mother who thinks she’s your best friend. It doesn’t help if your father is a sociopath.

By the way, Dina Lohan was NOT a Rockette, so it wasn’t that that made her bad.

Rick said...

While the article starts with a strong case we see the pivot:

But what of the man who deceives a woman by pretending to be some other fake, more successful — or even single — version of himself?

Here they reveal the bait and switch.

“Assuming that sexual autonomy means anything, it surely includes the right not to have sex with a married man if you don’t want to,” he argued in a 2013 paper. “It surely includes the right not to have sex with someone who isn’t interested in a serious relationship.

"Surely".

It's a personal choice to have sex, you decide when you know someone well enough. By what right do you have to appeal to others when it turns out your own judgement was wrong? Again we see that activists true goal is to grant women legal recourse whenever they are unhappy with a sexual outcome. If sex is so unimportant to someone they decide to have sex with someone because he's on a football team (an example given in the article) why would anyone even consider it important enough to legislate against?

David Begley said...

Meade:

The Lindsay Lohan version of The Parent Trap is not only my favorite movie, it is one of the greatest movies of all time. Nancy Meyers did a great job directing. Perfect music. Perfect casting. Dennis Quaid and the late Natasha Richardson were superb. I can recite many lines from it.

What has happened with Lohan is a tragedy as she is very talented.

Mary Beth said...

The First Street kids were the lucky ones. The Towers are spacious and modern compared to the makeshift, officelike basements some Purdue students have been forced to sleep in. In the Towers, they have single rooms and private bathrooms. You can even host friends as long as you don’t make too much noise. Abigail’s grandmother, who was married to a Purdue professor, had to pull some strings to get the 19-year-old freshman a spot.

I'm curious as to why the writer included this.

Dave in Tucson said...

> but you have to stop and think about it, and that's awkward

first world problems

gilbar said...

“It surely includes the right not to have sex with someone who isn’t interested in a serious relationship."

this is THE Crux of it, isn't it?
IF a woman wants it to be a fling; it IS a fling, and if the guy wants more: he's stalking her
IF a woman wants it to develop into a serious relationship, it Does: OR IT'S RAPE!
The relationship IS What Ever the Woman Wants it to BE

And, we wonder why
A) men are staying single, and playing with sex dolls
B) afghani men assume that RAPE! is Fine

Ken B said...

There is no problem with that sentence. It isn’t the least ambiguous or difficult to parse. We already know who his identical twin is, and you can only have one twin.

Darrell said...

If Natalie and Martin Lane are so tall, how do you explain Patty?
Did Natalie get bamboozled by a dwarf?
Did the same dwarf knock up Cathy's mother?
Or are there leprechauns and magic involved?

gilbar said...

David Begley, you should see the Haley Mills version (if you haven't),
it's nowhere near as good as Lindsay's, but it's still excellent

JPS said...

Fernandistein,

"at least poor Grant didn't get convicted of Abigail's stupidity despite being thoroughly punished for it."

I'm not sure he should be convicted, but poor Grant deserves the everloving hell beat out of him. Not sure the boyfriend should be the one to do it, he's a jackass. Good job for a brother if she has one.

gilbar said...

a woman who is deceived into having sex with her husband's identical twin
fify!
this IS fun!
clearer, Shorter!
Professor Althouse, if you go back to campus; and start teaching editing; i'm signing up!

FIDO said...

All of this broken down: 'I thought he was rich/famous/fertile when I fucked him.'

For some reason, SOME women think this legal demand makes them look like victims.

It makes them look like something...

FIDO said...

Caveat fututrix

JaimeRoberto said...

This reminds me of the scene in Revenge of the Nerds where the nerd wears the same costume as the football player and screws the football player's girlfriend in the funhouse. I guess that wasn't rape because she enjoyed it or something.

Yancey Ward said...

I am sorry, but you can't prosecute someone for rape in such circumstances because anyone can claim fraud on any dimension here. You might have an actionable case for fraud, however, or a tort.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The Lindsay Lohan version of The Parent Trap is not only my favorite movie, it is one of the greatest movies of all time. Nancy Meyers did a great job directing. Perfect music. Perfect casting. Dennis Quaid and the late Natasha Richardson were superb. I can recite many lines from it. ”

I agree there. The romance between Quaid and Richardson was esp good. Much better than the original. I was very much in love with her, and was unhappy at her untimely demise. I had grown up watching Hayley Mills (after a bit of old Shirley Temple), so liked her playing against herself in the original. I thought that Lohan did the better job at playing against herself though. She was more the smart alec. Maybe it was the times - when the original was made, that sort of almost mouthing off all the time was not as acceptable. Don’t rememer linescas well as you, but the one about not having gotten to fun, when they returned, from the camping trip without Merideth, having instigated the breakup.

I also liked Lohan in Mean Girls. Not as compelling as her roles in Parent Trap, but still enjoyable. Also liked Tina Fey there as the math teacher. Normally, she wears her politics too much on her sleeve to be enjoyable. But she didn’t overplay the role, so enjoyed it.

gspencer said...

Sweetie, Just think of it as the backed-in sex you had at a glory hole.

Sex and deception are made for one another.

jimbino said...

The most serious situation is where a woman rapes a man by claiming to be using birth control, all the while just planning to trap him into fatherhood.

JPS said...

Bruce Hayden, re Mean Girls:

I agree, and thought Tim Meadows was hilarious as the principal.

Zach said...

“Assuming that sexual autonomy means anything, it surely includes the right not to have sex with a married man if you don’t want to,” he argued in a 2013 paper. “It surely includes the right not to have sex with someone who isn’t interested in a serious relationship.

"Surely" is a giveaway word. It means that what someone is claiming is not sure at all. I think a definition of rape by fraud that was this broad would not survive contact with reality.

I've talked before about how "consent" is a blurry line disguised as a bright line. I don't think we need to get into that here.

She thought she was consenting to sex with one person. I think anyone would agree that such consent isn't transferable -- you couldn't argue that consenting to sex with one person means you could swap in someone else and still have the consent be valid. However, the guy seems not to have ever claimed to be the boyfriend. As she tells it, it was a case of mistaken identity.

However, drunkenly initiating sex with a sleeping person you are not in a relationship with sounds like sexual assault to me. What basis did this guy have for thinking his advances would be welcome?

Gospace said...

Still facing away, she grabbed his penis and inserted it into her vagina

So they had sex doggie style- in a top bunk bed, and she never turned around, and also disengaged and left without ever seeing who she was with. You can believe whatever you want of that. Going for rape was why the prosecution failed. Sexual assault would likely have landed a conviction. But this woke her up, at least partially: He was reaching from behind her, fondling her breast over her T-shirt. That's meets the definition of assault. Would have been a lot easier to convince a jury of it.

But maybe not. We don't have the information the jury had. We didn't hear the witnesses, the questioning and cross examination and answers. Based on just what is in the article- I would have voted "Not Guilty" on rape charges. And the article was written to support the idea the incident was rape. Doesn't do a very good job of it.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I'm become convinced that some women deserve to be raped.

Robert Cook said...

"Do away with rape. Feminine modesty no longer exists so the crime no longer exists."

You stated two overt and one implied falsehood in your second sentence.

Robert Cook said...

"I'm become convinced that some women deserve to be raped."

You just convinced me you're an asshole.

Robert Cook said...

"Abigail is the kind of heavy sleeper who can ... have entire conversations with people and later not remember it.

"IOW, Abigail has a serious mental problem."


You've never known or known of sleepers like this? I have.

Ann Althouse said...

Watched that Patty Duke clip (linked above).

For those who know the current season of "Survivor" (David & Goliath): Doesn't Patty's nerdy brother remind you of Christian?

Robert Cook said...

"When I saw the Parent Trap in 1963 I fell in love with the actress. Haley something."

Hayley Mills, daughter of esteemed British actor John Mills. I saw that when it came out--I was 8--and I also developed a huge crush on Hayley Mills.

Meade said...

Robert, She was really great!

gilbar said...

Yes there's No Doubt that Hayley was great... But; did she have flaming Red Hair? I think not

Lee Moore said...

What's confusing is that we're not told who his identical twin is. We can infer that it's his sister-in-law's husband, of course...

No, all we need to infer is that his identical twin is the fellow that his sister-in-law would like to be having sex with. The likeliest arrangement is that the sister in law is married to the identical twin. But there are other possible permutations. For example the sister in law could be the "rapist's" wife's sister, who is, or would like to be, in a rumpety relationship with the twin. Or the sister in law could be the wife of non identical brother number three, and the sister in law could be having an affair with the twin. In Arkansas, all things are possible.

FIDO said...

Daily Mail just put out an article that men are requiring women to give consent videos.

These are, of course, crap as a defense since a woman is allowed to withdraw consent even 30 years later and must still be believed.

But that men are actually ballsy enough to ASK women to do this is not really about legal protection, IMO. It is more a poke in the eye at women to what they have driven society to. "I want a chivalric man, who is romantic and cares about my feelings!"

Well, instead you get to make a Hi Def video of you accepting that this guy is going to try to bang your socks off and you understand and accept this fact. Something for the Christmas video!

Expect less sex to happen, not more.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Cook, what if the woman is a Nazi? Are you supporting the right of Nazis not to get raped, you Nazi-supporter?

gilbar said...

i always wondered about Cook; but Now, my concerns have been shown to be Justified!

He has OPENLY Said that Fully Supports the rights of *NAZI* women to do What EVER she wants, including not being Raped!! In the Big Scheme of Things,
there is NO DIFFERENCE between Nazi-supporting Cook, and ADOLF HITLER!!!!