Rape legislation discrimination

Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 09:37AM #1

From today's Irish Times:
"In what is an otherwise "gender neutral" Bill, one section makes clear that if an underage boy and girl have sexual intercourse with each other, the boy commits an offence but the girl does not.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell told reporters last night that the Government had decided on this so as not to "stigmatise single motherhood". He said that without this provision, every 16- year-old who had a baby or was pregnant would be either a victim of a rape or would have committed an offence."

What do people think about this - imo the reason given isn't a good enough reason to make a criminal out of the male for having consensual sex. I mean if it was the other way around and girls were to be criminalised, there would be outrage about the discrimination of it (and rightly so). Why should boys be guilty and girls not? :mad:

Kimbot · 02-06-2006 09:40AM

Typical of the Government!! Blame young males for everything!! And they say that females are more mature, if thats the case then they should know better etc!!!

Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 09:44AM

I think the problem is that they have set the new of age of consent at 17!! :eek:
If they lowered the age of consent to say 15 (as was suggested in the other thread), then this problem wouldn't seem as ridiculous.

fly_agaric · 02-06-2006 10:23AM

Doctor Fell wrote:

From today's Irish Times:
"In what is an otherwise "gender neutral" Bill, one section makes clear that if an underage boy and girl have sexual intercourse with each other, the boy commits an offence but the girl does not.

A bit depressing if true [haven't read the paper today yet]. I thought one good thing about this whole statutory rape debacle would be that the new consent laws would be more gender neutral.

However, this is only the emergency legislation isn't it - so maybe there's a hope people will get on their asses about it. Why does one party still have to be criminalised if they are both underage and there is minimal age-gap? The obvious answer is I suppose morality or something like that demands it - can't be seen condoning underage sex so someone, somewhere has to be committing an offence! And if you can't pin any blame on the girl because that is too, like, judgemental for our happy-clappy society, who else is left?

Anyway, at least the new laws will extend equal protection to all children, and are not unfair in that regard.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2006/0602/breaking7.htm

Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 10:42AM

Here's the link:
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2006/0602/4168062722HM1RAPEBILL.html

daveirl · 02-06-2006 11:12AM

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Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 11:20AM

daveirl wrote:

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I agree 100%, its the hysteria that has caused this rushed and imo flawed legislation. But its very annoying that this is so obviously discriminatory, and MMD's attitude is "well you come up with something better then" (I'm paraphrasing his response in the Dail to the opposition, but that was the gist of it.) Surely it is his responsibility as Min. for Justice (ha ha!!) to come up with the improvement, and not bring in legislation that he knows is flawed. It seems crazy that he'll bring this in knowing it has problems. Grrrrr:mad:

Sleepy · 02-06-2006 11:43AM

I don't this this is as much a symptom of rushed legislation as it is of incompetent legislators tbh.

I mean, I know English isn't officially our first language but in practice it is and I would expect anyone charged with writing legislation to be sufficiently equipped with an ability to write in it.

Banana Republicanism at it's finest.

aidan_walsh · 02-06-2006 11:53AM

Doctor Fell wrote:

From today's Irish Times:
"In what is an otherwise "gender neutral" Bill, one section makes clear that if an underage boy and girl have sexual intercourse with each other, the boy commits an offence but the girl does not.

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell told reporters last night that the Government had decided on this so as not to "stigmatise single motherhood". He said that without this provision, every 16- year-old who had a baby or was pregnant would be either a victim of a rape or would have committed an offence."

Basically its the exact same law, with the difference being that if it comes to court the girl can now be questioned about their demeanour and dress at the time. Thats the only difference as far as I can see.

Doctor Fell wrote:

What do people think about this - imo the reason given isn't a good enough reason to make a criminal out of the male for having consensual sex. I mean if it was the other way around and girls were to be criminalised, there would be outrage about the discrimination of it (and rightly so). Why should boys be guilty and girls not?

The reason is a bit of a crock, but I presume that it stems from a definition of rape as penetrative intercourse, as opposed to any other action which would probably be classed as sexual abuse if taken to court (I haven't seen the text to either this bill or the previous, so I am only working on assumptions here). Using this as a guide, you can understand how its a lot easier to put the blame on the male.

02-06-2006 11:57AM

What i can't get is if they have to blame someone to keep these pregnancies down, why don't they blame the older party? I mean if a 15 year old boy has sex with a 16 year old girl, most of the time the boy is held to blame. :rolleyes:

aidan_walsh · 02-06-2006 11:59AM

Deleted User wrote:

why don't they blame the older party?

Why should they?

02-06-2006 12:19PM

Why should they?

Well most things in society are age related. You need to be 18 to drink. 18 to drive (technically). etc. We count the maturity of people mostly by their age, with their actions coming a close second.

Seems a better way of judging the responsible party than just picking the boy/man straightaway.

Afterall when I lost my virginity it was the girl that lead me to the old squash court, and directed my actions.

I sure as hell didn't have much of a clue of what I was doing. And we both were under the legal age of consent. So i am of course guilty of statutory rape simply by having sex, despite her being older than me (and her not being a virgin, when I was). Perfectly logical. :rolleyes:

Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 12:25PM

aidan_walsh wrote:

The reason is a bit of a crock, but I presume that it stems from a definition of rape as penetrative intercourse, as opposed to any other action which would probably be classed as sexual abuse if taken to court (I haven't seen the text to either this bill or the previous, so I am only working on assumptions here). Using this as a guide, you can understand how its a lot easier to put the blame on the male.

No I don't agree its easier to put the blame on the male, not at all. We are talking about consentual sex here i.e both parties willingly take part. So its ridiculous to criminalise one person, but not the other. The reason he gives is that he doesn't want to stigmatise young mothers, fair enough. But he's stigmatising young fathers! Like I said, ridiculous.

simu · 02-06-2006 12:39PM

Doctor Fell wrote:

The reason he gives is that he doesn't want to stigmatise young mothers, fair enough. But he's stigmatising young fathers! Like I said, ridiculous.

Aye. Makes no sense really!

humbert · 02-06-2006 12:40PM

How often do you think 16 year old girls force people into sex?

simu · 02-06-2006 12:42PM

humbert wrote:

How often do you think 16 year old girls force people into sex?

Well, it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to persuade their boyfriends of the same age to have sex. So, if that happens, why is the guy comitting an offense and the girl not?

02-06-2006 12:45PM

Its been said before that this is about consentual sex. Nothing about forcing... But even that aside, many girls have an equal sex drive to boys at any age... or are you another one of these people that think that women don't enjoy sex...?

humbert · 02-06-2006 12:47PM

simu wrote:

Well, it's pretty common for 16 year old girls to persuade their boyfriends of the same age to have sex. So, if that happens, why is the guy comitting an offense and the girl not?

I'm struggling to imagine the girl trying to persuade the unwilling boy to have sex, if they are both underage is the charge of rape pressed whether they want it to be or not?

02-06-2006 12:57PM

humbert wrote:

I'm struggling to imagine the girl trying to persuade the unwilling boy to have sex, if they are both underage is the charge of rape pressed whether they want it to be or not?

A female can be awfully convincing when she wants something. Its a mass generalisation/stereotype to believe all boys want sex all the time. (my belief of this is that guys tend to want sex all the time, because they're not actually getting any... lol) [another generalisation, of course]

My understanding of this was that the crime is misleading. there's no actual rape involved. Its just that the parents haven't given permission, and that one or more of the parties involved are below the legal age of consent. Had one party been forced into sex, then it would be an actual rape charge, rather than statutory....

Maybe I've been misunderstanding it all these years....

The_Minister · 02-06-2006 01:04PM

Doctor Fell wrote:

I think the problem is that they have set the new of age of consent at 17!! :eek:
If they lowered the age of consent to say 15 (as was suggested in the other thread), then this problem wouldn't seem as ridiculous.

MMD was going to lower the age limit but then all the Joe Duffy crowd started shouting.

zuma · 02-06-2006 01:09PM

The age of consent is now 17 for both sexes?
Am I the only one having trouble with this given that it was on the news a couple of days ago that it would be put at 16.

When I was younger we all assumed that the age of consent for both sexes was 16....but it was actually 15 for boys and 17 for girls?

Why they didnt equalise it to 16, as we all assumed it was originally, I really dont know!

What really amusees me is that if a 16yo boy and girl have sex and she gets pregnant...the boy gets charged with rape and the girl is 100% innocent as she was of course coersed.....girls must be pretty damn dim according to McDowell.

daveirl · 02-06-2006 01:15PM

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fly_agaric · 02-06-2006 01:16PM

Doctor Fell wrote:

No I don't agree its easier to put the blame on the male, not at all.

Well, it obviously is if the government feels that somebody must be culpable for the evils of consensual sex between two people who are underage but can't stomach pinning any of the rap on girls!

Stark · 02-06-2006 01:25PM

This is rediculous. They're enshrining stereotypes/generalisations about boys, girls and their respective attitudes towards sex into law. Whatever happened to fair trial and a hearing of all the facts involved. This is like "tick these 4 boxes, if you get 2 out 4, you're a rapist".

Firespinner wrote:

MMD was going to lower the age limit but then all the Joe Duffy crowd started shouting.

For the childrens' "protection" of course.

daveirl · 02-06-2006 01:26PM

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Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 01:29PM

fly_agaric wrote:

Well, it obviously is if the government feels that somebody must be culpable for the evils of consensual sex between two people who are underage but can't stomach pinning any of the rap on girls!

No, I said it wasn't easy to understand in the context of aidan_walsh's point, and its not. My point is it is unfair to blame one party for taking part in a mutually consentual act - that is difficult to understand, I think.
Hubert no offence, but to suggest girls can't be persuasive when it comes to sex is laughable! And when you say how many 16 year old girls force people to have sex, are you insinuating that many 16 year old boys do???

Sleepy · 02-06-2006 01:30PM

daveirl wrote:

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It'd be the first time MMD gave a crap about what the public thought when bringing in laws if that's why he's done it. And if he did do it because of the knickers-in-a-twist Catholics why the fcvk can't he realise that there's as many sane voters as there are repressed ones. We just don't go screaming our heads off on Joe Duffy every time someone else's life is effected in a way that doesn't adhere to our moral codes.

Or in a word: Grrr...

YeAh! · 02-06-2006 01:32PM

daveirl wrote:

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Theres no rationality for it alright, but still I agree with Stark. Under a fair trial, and after hearing all the facts etc, the individual committing the cime (child sex) would be dealt with accordingly and sent to jail

Doctor Fell · 02-06-2006 01:40PM

Also bear in mind that sex with a person between the age of 15 and 17 now carries a 5 year sentence, 10 years if it was an "authority" figure.
So if two 16 year olds have sex, the girl gets off scot free (as she should really), but the bloke gets 5 years (potentially)!! That is very difficult to understand.
I'm not sure this should be called child sex, I mean 15 and 16 year olds having sexual relationships with their peers is different than much younger kids doing the same. And why should such a hefty penalty be imposed for such a "crime", and in such a discriminatory and unfair manner?
Edit: I'm only talking about two 16 year-olds here, not the case of an older adult and 15 year old etc.

daveirl · 02-06-2006 01:57PM

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simu · 02-06-2006 06:51PM

And what about not stigmatising young fathers? This is harldy going to encourage them to stand by their kids.

Rape legislation discrimination

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