Sexual assault = Rape (proposed legislation in India)

Submitted by johndias on Fri, 2010-05-21 22:52

Article here. If this bill becomes law in India, the penalty for kissing an unwilling victim (i.e. sexual assault) will be identical to the penalty for raping them. Of course, consent is defined subjectively by the victim and need not be substantiated, making such a law rife for abuse. Note the section in the bill which results in life imprisonment for putting one's tongue in the victim's mouth. Excerpt:

'MUMBAI: Drastic changes proposed to strengthen rape and sexual assault laws, so that women have more protection, will almost blur the difference between the two crimes. In fact, reactions to the draft bill, sent to the Union home ministry, have termed it "anti-men" with wide scope for misuse.

While there were indications earlier that the draft might propose a gender-neutral law, the draft uploaded by the ministry to invite responses from the public shows that the amendments specifically target crimes by men against women. Women activists told TOI that the proposals were long-pending and necessary.

Under the draft bill, if a man forcibly even puts his finger into a woman's mouth —or lets his tongue enter her mouth during a kiss — he could end up in jail for sexual assault with the sentence being no less than the punishment for rape, which is seven years to life. The draft bill also seeks a stricter age of consent, raising it from 16 to 18.'

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Comments

Is this some kind of effort to force people to live "traditional" lives? I.e., no sex or intimate physical contact of any kind before marriage? Or is it a backdoor way to criminalize sex (or make it so scary to try even with "implicit permission" to kiss someone else) so as to try to reduce the population headcount in India?

I have no idea what people are thinking these days. But I know this: I doubt very much this law, if passed, would get used against women.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2010-05-22 17:05

Of course it wouldn't get used on women. They will like a Guy yet still expect him to make the first move. Then some passive aggressive woman decides she was "assaulted" by someone. These highly subjective rules are pathetic.

Any relationship when scrutinized could be viewed as harassment. She/he touched me without my permission, she/he nagged at me when I didn't do x, yelled at me when I slept with someone else, she/he called me all the time... You can see that each of those could cause a person on the receiving end unwanted stress yet are also perfectly acceptable given that they are in a relationship (if they weren't in a relationship it could be deemed as harassment). It just goes to show that in certain circumstances we give up our personal space even if we don't always like what's happening. The only important thing which tells you you still have rights is that you can walk away if you don't like things.

If the government made marriage the one exception to the normal boundaries the government would be forcing a traditional life style on you.

The importance placed on sexual harassment is ridiculous. Its as if those sexual victims had it worse than some Guy who was randomly beaten. Give any woman the choice of being beat up by some mugger or have their breast grabbed by an undesirable date and 99.99 wouldn't hesitate for the latter.

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Submitted by fondueguy on Sun, 2010-05-23 00:26

And yet feminists still have not been able to catch the boogie man and there are even FEWER women coming forward these days claiming to have been raped then there were 30 years ago. Yet, they still have the mythical 1 in 4 woman are raped in their lifetime to try and "prove" so the tactic of replacing the word rape with the ambiguous term sexual assault is used to keep the fear up.

Problem is, groups in power always eventually seek more power and in most Western countries the laws that strip citizens of their rights with little to no proof needed are the laws regarding sex. So, mark my words here folks, if any group comes to power that wants to remove the rights of the citizenry it has power over it will be these laws that are used to accomplish it. All I advise to people is be careful what laws you allow your government to pass AGAINST YOU. What sexual assault laws aren't targeted at you? Well, if for whatever reason cops happen to show up to arrest you and the officer that puts the cuffs on you is female and claims you grabbed her in a sexually suggestive manner, kiss your rights and freedoms good by because even a murder conviction will inflict less suffering on you then that trumped up charge.

So these laws are great in the eyes of two groups - feminists and the government. Feminists get to criminalize all men which is their ultimate goal, and the government gets a set of laws that can strip an individual of their rights and freedoms for life on the absolute weakest kinds of evidence. Even the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have more champions fighting for their rights then sex offenders. "He touched me!" really is the modern day equivalent of "Witch!"

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Submitted by Paragon on Mon, 2010-05-24 19:02

This article was published on 22 May. However:

The ministry invited comments from the general public on the draft bill till May 15.

Questions:

  • Shouldn't such a pervasive change in the law that affects many of the nation's citizens be given more publicity and a reasonable amount of time for feedback?
  • Why didn't the newspaper report this earlier, so as to alert its readers of the period for comment? Were they not aware of it, or was it deliberately overlooked?
  • Should the amendments — which are demonstrably nothing more than tyranny imposed upon men — be successfully passed, what will it take to correct them in the future?
  • How will this affect male-female relationships?
  • Will the nation's citizens be properly educated as to what these changes imply? Or will they be used like submarine patents are — that is, capitalising on non-malicious ignorance?
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Submitted by schwing on Mon, 2010-05-24 21:12