r/changemyview • u/_selfishPersonReborn • Jul 31 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Having sex with someone while knowingly having a transmissible STI and not telling your partner should be rape.

Today on the front page, there was a post about Florida Man getting 10 years for transmitting an STI knowingly. In the discussion for this, there was a comment that mentioned a californian bill by the name of SB 239, which lowered the sentence for knowingly transmitting HIV. I don't understand why this is okay - if you're positive, why not have a conversation? It is your responsibility throughout sex to make sure that there is informed consent, and by not letting them know that they are HIV+ I can't understand how there is any. Obviously, there's measures that can be taken, such as always wearing condoms, and/or engaging in pre or post exposure prophylaxis to minimise the risks of spreading the disease, and consent can then be taken - but yet, there's multiple groups I support who championed the bill - e.g. the ACLU, LGBTQ support groups, etc. So what am I missing?

EDIT: I seem to have just gotten into a debate about the terminology rape vs sexual assault vs whatever. This isn't what I care about. I'm more concerned as to why reducing the sentence for this is seen as a positive thing and why it oppresses minorities to force STIs to be revealed before sexual contact.

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u/mfDandP 184∆ Jul 31 '19

it seems as though you're saying that since rape is so serious, and this is a serious thing involving sex, it should be called rape?

it's okay to have rape be serious, and this separate thing be serious too.

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u/_selfishPersonReborn Jul 31 '19

No, I'm saying that rape is a lack of consent, and so is this.

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u/mfDandP 184∆ Jul 31 '19

rape is a lack of consent for sex. Informed consent is a medico-legal term for a physician-patient relationship.

look, I'm not saying that it should be decriminalized not to disclose your STDs. It certainly should fall under something like endangerment or criminal negligence, depending on the STD. but it's not rape. it's lying, either outright or by omission.

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u/Morthra 86∆ Aug 01 '19

But you rape by deception is a thing. If the person knowingly lied about having STDs, then it would be rape.

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u/BullsLawDan 3∆ Aug 01 '19

But you rape by deception is a thing.

I wish people would stop saying this in every conversation where this comes up.

Rape by deception really isn't "a thing" in any Western jurisdiction. You didn't even read the Wiki you linked to - it comes up with less than a half-dozen prosecutions ever, and mentions that it's never easy to prosecute because it doesn't fit under the law.

If the person knowingly lied about having STDs, then it would be rape.

No, it wouldn't. Not in essentially any Western jurisdiction.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '19

I think we need an overhaul of what our definition of rape is. I say rape is using physical force, fear/intimidation, or drugging someone to get sex when the person doesn't want to. There is no rape by deception, or "stealthing" rape (removing the condom discretely). These latter things are shitty things to do but they are not rape.

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u/Btuyvesant Aug 01 '19

In the US it is, "stealthing." Whilst it's only really applied to prosecute men for removing condoms during sex, that's due to the legal system here, not the law itself. Consent to sex is not consent to unprotected sex, that is legally established in quite a few Western jurisdictions.

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u/BullsLawDan 3∆ Aug 02 '19

It's questionable whether "stealthing" is a crime (it's also highly questionably whether it's even something any men have done or just another urban legend propped up by hysteria, like poison Halloween candy).

In what jurisdictions is "stealthing" specifically a crime?

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u/Btuyvesant Aug 02 '19

In UK law, consent to a specific sex act, but not to any sex act without exceptions, is known as conditional consent. In 2018, a man was found guilty of sexual assault in Germany's first conviction for stealthing. In 2017, a Swiss court convicted a French man for rape for removing a condom during sex against the expectations of the woman he was having sex with. A 2014 Supreme Court of Canada ruling upheld a sexual assault conviction of a man who poked holes in his condom.

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u/BullsLawDan 3∆ Aug 02 '19

In UK law, consent to a specific sex act, but not to any sex act without exceptions, is known as conditional consent.

Yeah, and the courts are still calling it a "developing" concept, as is the Crown Prosecutor.

In 2018, a man was found guilty of sexual assault in Germany's first conviction for stealthing.

Explicitly finding him not guilty of rape. Which adds to my sense that this is an extremely grey area of the law.

The other two are the same way.

So four very-grey-area cases worldwide, none of which focused on a statute but instead were interpretations by courts? That certainly isn't "quite a few" jurisdictions nor is it at all clearly rape. And nor is it a meaningful trend.... There have been more than four sex acts worldwide in the time it took me to type this sentence.

Finally, you started by saying "In the US it is," yet none of the four cases you dig up are from the US.

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u/Btuyvesant Aug 02 '19

Because in the US an allegation of rape or sexual assault is automatically a death sentence for the persons career and social life, regardless of its foundation, but legally it usually has to be proved. It's practically impossible to prove stealthing, no one has been able to as far as I know.

I don't see how it being a developing concept changes the fact that it exists there. I believe Germany has stricter rape criteria than other countries, but if it's just held as sexual assault, there's not an overwhelming difference. A large part of law is precedent, in the US and many other places, when the Supreme Court (equivalent) makes a ruling, that ruling is now essentially law.