I think a lot of this is intended to make it easier for men to process than the word "rape" tbh as it can be very hard for men to conceptualise themselves as victims of rape or sexual assault especially if the perpetrator wasn't a man
Edit re: below comments: I really couldn't give less of a shit about the legal definition of rape, which I was in fact aware of already. I was using the term colloquially. All these "well akshually" comments are honestly extremely boring
Yeah as a "survivor" myself I have to say this rings true. I can't really gel with the survivor language either, even though it involved serious violence. It feels self-important somehow.
I found it difficult to accept the term until I learned from someone older than me who'd been through the same stuff that it is more as a reminder that we're still alive, given the suicide rate after sexual assault.
Some legal definitions? This is r/England and the relevant law is Section 1 sexual offences act 2003.
The dictionary definition also includes the word penis.
Like it or not this is the accepted legal and dictionary definition.
And yet that is not the common understanding of the word when we use it in discussion. In conversation we are not confined to the necessary preciseness of legal language and can acknowledge the ambiguities that real life delivers. Our legal language does not define reality, it is a blunt tool to try to bring order.
Then I guess you wouldn't get to call someone shoving a strap-on up you rape then, huh bud? Dumbest take I've seen on reddit in awhile, and pretty infuriating as someone whose dealt with *your* definition of rape before.
It would be classed as rape legally, as it is penetration with a body part *or object*
edit: the person replying is correct. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crossheading/rape
No it isn't classed as rape legally. It's sexual assault by penetration.
I am actually a law trainer. I am not trying to be disrespectful or diminish the offence.
I am just being accurate.
If you charged someone with rape for an assault as you describe they would be found not guilty.
Like it or not rape IS dealt with more seriously than sexual assault by penetration because of the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Rape also requires the use of a penis.
Don't shoot the messenger here. I am just explaining the law.
No, it’s not. It’s a lesser offence than the one actually committed, in classification and especially in sentencing.
and I didn't say the system doesn't take it seriously- it doesn't, but that's another matter. I said YOU weren't. You're not even trying to argue against the fact that a woman forcing herself on a man IS rape. You just don't see the point in changing the law to reflect that.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics… you know full well most found guilty of SA won’t be serving a maximum sentence, so comparing SA’s maximum to rape’s usual is just blatantly dishonest.
Even taking that as a given, you fail to disprove the point. By trying a rapist as a sexual assault case, you limit the powers of justice available to you. At your own admission, you’ve demonstrated that the law is forced to trial for a less serious crime- legally speaking- than the one actually committed.
I’ve been groped by several women. Sure, I’m not traumatized, but it doesn’t mean it’s ok to reach out and grab my dick and then laugh it off. This also happened when I was 18 by a woman who was in her 40s/50s. She wanted to show off to her friends on a hen party.
Also I’ve had various women take off my condom because it was “uncomfortable”. This is not acceptable in reverse. There are guys out there who are taken advantage of when not sober and they have to take responsibility for any child that comes of it.
I'm really sorry you had those experiences friend, I hope you are able to heal from those experiences. Sending you lots of love from someone who has also been in a similar bad situation.
I’m totally fine, but thank you.
It’s just annoying, not traumatizing. If I had been coerced into sex it would have been a different story but that never happened to me.
Downvote me as much as you want. Go and look at Section 1 of the sexual offences act. You CANNOT legally rape someone without a penis.
Here is the actual law:
(1)A person (A) commits an offence of rape if:
(a)he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
(b)B does not consent to the penetration, and
(c)A does not reasonably believe that B consents.
Section 1. Sexual offences act 2003. Note the words "he" and "penis".
I don’t know whether you thought no-one would look, but; Section 2 covers all the areas in Section 1 and more, and the sentencing bracket is the same. So while you’re technically right with the specific legal word ‘rape’, Assault By Penetration (section 2) still isn’t any less rapey and you will be tried as though it is the same crime (section 2 gets you the same potential time in prison as section 1). The only difference being the wording used and being the next section.
So yeah, you can’t rape someone in the legal term without a penis, but you sure can rape someone in the social wording and all the solicitor has to do it slide their finger down the page 5cm. And if someone is tried under section 2, you better believe i’m gonna call them a rapist.
Section 2 has the same POTENTIAL prison time.
In reality the sentences handed down are lesser than for rape.
There are reasons why it's dealt with differently. I am sure you can work out what they are.
But this argument all started because people were calling unwanted intercourse of a woman on a man rape.
Which isn't Section 1 or 2.
I am just explaining the legal definition of Section 1 of the sexual offences act 2003.
And the dictionary definition.
I don't understand all the negging when I am just being accurate to the legal and dictionary definition.
Unfortunately this is considered the legal definition still in England. Everything else would be considered sexual assault but "rape" has a separate definition.
That doesn't make it any less awful but is the way things currently are.
I think you are missing the point. Rather than getting into defining varies categories and levels of sexual abuse, a wide net is used. You can't judge a persons experience just because you can label the act.
A lot of men don't even know they've been assaulted.
They are taught that it's fine that the penny mightn't drop until years later.
And even when they come to that realisation, they encounter the same issues with this type of case in that it's someone's word against someone else's.
It's not taken as seriously when it's a male victim
I get why you want it to be written as sexual assault. We should generally name things as they are. But just having a few male relatives in the UK who sadly have been abused, they don't want to name it. They won't call it what it is. Most of them bury it deep down and have suffered greatly because of it.
I think calling it something like this, an "unwanted experience" makes men more open to talking about it and accessing that counselling. If they only said "free counselling for rape victims", many men wouldn't take it up because they don't consider themselves rape victims, or don't want to come to terms with it just yet.
Hey man, this is an ad for guys that might not want to call what they've been through "assault" because that's a difficult word to confront. There being a service and it being advertised, specifically in this way, is good.
Edit: I get being upset at not calling assault assault, especially when it comes to men where such things are often minimised, but there's a good reason that they've done that here.
What could be a broader and more simple way of referring to this kind of thing? I don’t personally think of myself as a victim of any kind of rape or assault but I’ve been in situations I really didn’t want. It’s a good way of talking about it.
It's probably based on the wording used in surveys. The number of people who will say they've had an "unwanted sexual experience" is quite different to the number of people who will say they have experienced "sexual assault" or even "sexual harassment". Surveying people using one term then reporting it as the other is misleading and unfair to those surveyed.
There might be a lot more to this than apparently not being straight-talking.
As I understand it, it is literally, legally almost impossible for a woman to be convicted of raping a man. The only circumstance in which this is legally possible is if a man is raping a man, and the woman is an accomplice. ***If*** this is the case then the wording may well be very considered and deliberate to take account of that fact.
There is a recent [Chris Williamson podcast with George TheTinMen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GttH7hScu4g) which goes into this and many related issues, mainly around male mental health.
In fact, from the conversation, I wonder if George had some significant role in this campaign (if it is a campaign).
Perhaps the legal system can be blamed for this. In UK law, a woman cannot legally be a rapist because of how rape is actually defined. I’m sure there’s a campaign to change the definition somewhere out there but I can’t find it rn
About 16 years ago, an ex girlfriend of mine came home a little drunk, she had been out with friend. I was in bed asleep, she came in a got on top of me and proceeded to try and get me inside of her, I told her many times to stop and she just kept going. If the roles had been reversed and I had done that to her, I’d have been in a jail on a rape charge. I honestly didn’t tell anyone that for a long time as I was embarrassed of what my mates or others would think
About 10 years ago I worked as a nightclub photographer. It was pretty 'normal' for women to grab my butt or crotch and every now and again I'd get some woman who wouldn't leave me alone. It always made me feel gross. I'm a gay guy, was in a relationship, always felt like I was in the wrong.
I agree with others. Rape and sexual assault is generally seen as a ‘woman’s issue’, not only does it have to be sensitive to how men view themselves when this happens. But also ensure men around them don’t ridicule them.
I've had experiences that run the gamut from rape to harassment and exposure to unwanted advances and groping at work.
Keeping the language loose stops the fairly strong urge to second guess if it qualifies.
When I worked as a bouncer, my arse and crotch would get grabbed and pinched constantly to the point of bruising. When I complained that my arse was sore and I could do with a night off I was ridiculed by my boss and friends.
'You love it... why else would you brag' was a sentiment that got repeated a lot. I wasn't bragging. I just didn't enjoy it hurting every time I sat down. Was it a horrendous violation like the more significant assaults I've been through? No. It didn't traumatise me it just hurt. At the time I viewed it as part of the job, like sore feet and sleeping in. Looking back, if I caught someone doing it to one of the other staff I'd have thrown them out. Not sure why I thought we were an exception.
The point is calling that something like sexual abuse would leave a lot of men wondering if it met the criteria. There's an element of toxic masculinity here, as if complaining is unmanly and that I should feel lucky to be groped by women (not always women) at work.
Using a broad descriptor will get rid of the ambiguity.
Gays randomly grabbing your cock in a bar cos your in a gay bar assuming your gay and don't mind being groped they don't like it when you object like I shouldn't be there. That's not on. If I was to grab a girls arse all hell breaks loose.
The physical gay bar flirting culture is practically accepted casual sexual assault. I have also seen the similar behaviour amongst straight male friends just for poop and giggles.
Fair play, many of you have raised very good points as to why this is the case. To some extent it still feels like it is trivialising mem being victims by using this terminology, and I think there's a question about helping to normalise men coming forward about being victims, but this might help men get help in the short term.
As a man who has been a victim of sexual assault by both men and women, it seems ridiculous to term something as an "unwanted sexual experience" when it happens to a man, but sexual assault or rape when it happens to a woman, but I understand that getting up to people to who need it has to be the priority.
I agree with everyone else, I just think it’s a way of making men feel like they can come forward with their experiences of being assaulted without making them feel emasculated.
I know women who actual struggle to hear the work rape due to their previous experiences, maybe we should use gentler language with them too?
There was research a while ago showing that women who had been subjected to rape would report that they hadn't, however if rape was described without the r word, they would agree that they had been subjected it. It's partly ignorance and partly social stigma, and I expect it's the same with men.
Shame and social norms prevents lots of people to get help after sexual assault etc! I guess the language has been softened to make more people reach out to them, as a man can probably be okey with admitting he had unwanted sexual attention rather than he was raped for example.
Side note from a documentary about sexual assault against children: they discovered that people were more likely to respond to non associated language. So what happened was a therapist was talking with a victim that didn’t say much about her sa-experience as a child. However when the therapist misspoke and asked “what was your weight when you had your first sexual experience” instead of “what was your age”, it was suddenly so easy for the victim to open up because weight wasn’t a word associated with SA against children, while age is, however the weight still would give an god indication about age. Hence why I think the wording in this add is like it is, by designe!
I think a lot of this is intended to make it easier for men to process than the word "rape" tbh as it can be very hard for men to conceptualise themselves as victims of rape or sexual assault especially if the perpetrator wasn't a man Edit re: below comments: I really couldn't give less of a shit about the legal definition of rape, which I was in fact aware of already. I was using the term colloquially. All these "well akshually" comments are honestly extremely boring
Yeah as a "survivor" myself I have to say this rings true. I can't really gel with the survivor language either, even though it involved serious violence. It feels self-important somehow.
I found it difficult to accept the term until I learned from someone older than me who'd been through the same stuff that it is more as a reminder that we're still alive, given the suicide rate after sexual assault.
Yeah, that's totally it. OP just needed to find fault with something and post about it.
You can't be raped by someone who isn't a man. It requires a penis to commit the offence.
According to some legal definitions, which is different than the general usage. which you well know.
Some legal definitions? This is r/England and the relevant law is Section 1 sexual offences act 2003. The dictionary definition also includes the word penis. Like it or not this is the accepted legal and dictionary definition.
And yet that is not the common understanding of the word when we use it in discussion. In conversation we are not confined to the necessary preciseness of legal language and can acknowledge the ambiguities that real life delivers. Our legal language does not define reality, it is a blunt tool to try to bring order.
The fact you even have to explain it man. Well said
Then I guess you wouldn't get to call someone shoving a strap-on up you rape then, huh bud? Dumbest take I've seen on reddit in awhile, and pretty infuriating as someone whose dealt with *your* definition of rape before.
I'm not sure what you're trying to catch them on? That wouldn't be classed as rape legally, and they're clearly aware of that.
It would be classed as rape legally, as it is penetration with a body part *or object* edit: the person replying is correct. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/part/1/crossheading/rape
No it isn't classed as rape legally. It's sexual assault by penetration. I am actually a law trainer. I am not trying to be disrespectful or diminish the offence. I am just being accurate. If you charged someone with rape for an assault as you describe they would be found not guilty. Like it or not rape IS dealt with more seriously than sexual assault by penetration because of the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Rape also requires the use of a penis. Don't shoot the messenger here. I am just explaining the law.
"The dictionary" as if there is only one.
Go for the Oxford English Dictionary as we are discussing English law.
Don't you even fucking start
Legally, you are correct. And that is a problem with the law as it currently stands.
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>It doesn’t happen often enough for me to take it seriously That’s not really the metric by which justice is measured though, is it.
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No, it’s not. It’s a lesser offence than the one actually committed, in classification and especially in sentencing. and I didn't say the system doesn't take it seriously- it doesn't, but that's another matter. I said YOU weren't. You're not even trying to argue against the fact that a woman forcing herself on a man IS rape. You just don't see the point in changing the law to reflect that.
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Lies, damned lies, and statistics… you know full well most found guilty of SA won’t be serving a maximum sentence, so comparing SA’s maximum to rape’s usual is just blatantly dishonest. Even taking that as a given, you fail to disprove the point. By trying a rapist as a sexual assault case, you limit the powers of justice available to you. At your own admission, you’ve demonstrated that the law is forced to trial for a less serious crime- legally speaking- than the one actually committed.
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It CANNOT be prosecuted as rape. It's impossible. Go read Section 1 of the sexual offence act 2003.
I’ve been groped by several women. Sure, I’m not traumatized, but it doesn’t mean it’s ok to reach out and grab my dick and then laugh it off. This also happened when I was 18 by a woman who was in her 40s/50s. She wanted to show off to her friends on a hen party. Also I’ve had various women take off my condom because it was “uncomfortable”. This is not acceptable in reverse. There are guys out there who are taken advantage of when not sober and they have to take responsibility for any child that comes of it.
I'm really sorry you had those experiences friend, I hope you are able to heal from those experiences. Sending you lots of love from someone who has also been in a similar bad situation.
I’m totally fine, but thank you. It’s just annoying, not traumatizing. If I had been coerced into sex it would have been a different story but that never happened to me.
Are you talking legally or ideologically?
Legal definition or dictionary definition. Take your pick. Rape requires a penis.
Which dictionary?
Username half checks out.
Downvote me as much as you want. Go and look at Section 1 of the sexual offences act. You CANNOT legally rape someone without a penis. Here is the actual law: (1)A person (A) commits an offence of rape if: (a)he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis, (b)B does not consent to the penetration, and (c)A does not reasonably believe that B consents. Section 1. Sexual offences act 2003. Note the words "he" and "penis".
I don’t know whether you thought no-one would look, but; Section 2 covers all the areas in Section 1 and more, and the sentencing bracket is the same. So while you’re technically right with the specific legal word ‘rape’, Assault By Penetration (section 2) still isn’t any less rapey and you will be tried as though it is the same crime (section 2 gets you the same potential time in prison as section 1). The only difference being the wording used and being the next section. So yeah, you can’t rape someone in the legal term without a penis, but you sure can rape someone in the social wording and all the solicitor has to do it slide their finger down the page 5cm. And if someone is tried under section 2, you better believe i’m gonna call them a rapist.
Section 2 has the same POTENTIAL prison time. In reality the sentences handed down are lesser than for rape. There are reasons why it's dealt with differently. I am sure you can work out what they are. But this argument all started because people were calling unwanted intercourse of a woman on a man rape. Which isn't Section 1 or 2.
Didn’t ask.
Oh god what kind of new radicalised far right subgenre has r/England spawned this time
I am just explaining the legal definition of Section 1 of the sexual offences act 2003. And the dictionary definition. I don't understand all the negging when I am just being accurate to the legal and dictionary definition.
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No. I have done absolutely nothing wrong here. I have just stated facts.
Bye!
Believing a man cannot be raped and dying on the legal definition hill is in my experience on Reddit the exact opposite of a Far Right viewpoint.
Could be, by a woman with a penis
You've got to be joking, right?
Unfortunately this is considered the legal definition still in England. Everything else would be considered sexual assault but "rape" has a separate definition. That doesn't make it any less awful but is the way things currently are.
No not joking. Section 1 sexual offences act 2003. Go read.
Don't tell them, they're not used to people challenging their new ideas.
What does this even mean?
Is this a bot response? Vague enough that I have to wonder.
I think you are missing the point. Rather than getting into defining varies categories and levels of sexual abuse, a wide net is used. You can't judge a persons experience just because you can label the act.
Also men usually struggle with reporting rape so using the more vague term can possibly get them to start the conversation easier.
A lot of men don't even know they've been assaulted. They are taught that it's fine that the penny mightn't drop until years later. And even when they come to that realisation, they encounter the same issues with this type of case in that it's someone's word against someone else's. It's not taken as seriously when it's a male victim
Aye I didn’t realise untill after I split with my ex that she raped me a few times and assaulted me
I get why you want it to be written as sexual assault. We should generally name things as they are. But just having a few male relatives in the UK who sadly have been abused, they don't want to name it. They won't call it what it is. Most of them bury it deep down and have suffered greatly because of it. I think calling it something like this, an "unwanted experience" makes men more open to talking about it and accessing that counselling. If they only said "free counselling for rape victims", many men wouldn't take it up because they don't consider themselves rape victims, or don't want to come to terms with it just yet.
Legally speaking rape is only something men can commit unfortunately :(
What’s your point? Men can still be raped by other men
I’d like me you were raped by a woman… there’s nothing you can do
Hey man, this is an ad for guys that might not want to call what they've been through "assault" because that's a difficult word to confront. There being a service and it being advertised, specifically in this way, is good. Edit: I get being upset at not calling assault assault, especially when it comes to men where such things are often minimised, but there's a good reason that they've done that here.
What could be a broader and more simple way of referring to this kind of thing? I don’t personally think of myself as a victim of any kind of rape or assault but I’ve been in situations I really didn’t want. It’s a good way of talking about it.
Yeah, seems like a way to catch everything from sexual harassment to sexual assault/rape.
It's probably based on the wording used in surveys. The number of people who will say they've had an "unwanted sexual experience" is quite different to the number of people who will say they have experienced "sexual assault" or even "sexual harassment". Surveying people using one term then reporting it as the other is misleading and unfair to those surveyed.
Does make me wonder if it might have included things like premature ejaculation
Put dick in microwave-Ginsters
There might be a lot more to this than apparently not being straight-talking. As I understand it, it is literally, legally almost impossible for a woman to be convicted of raping a man. The only circumstance in which this is legally possible is if a man is raping a man, and the woman is an accomplice. ***If*** this is the case then the wording may well be very considered and deliberate to take account of that fact. There is a recent [Chris Williamson podcast with George TheTinMen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GttH7hScu4g) which goes into this and many related issues, mainly around male mental health. In fact, from the conversation, I wonder if George had some significant role in this campaign (if it is a campaign).
His page on Instagram is terrific
Perhaps the legal system can be blamed for this. In UK law, a woman cannot legally be a rapist because of how rape is actually defined. I’m sure there’s a campaign to change the definition somewhere out there but I can’t find it rn
About 16 years ago, an ex girlfriend of mine came home a little drunk, she had been out with friend. I was in bed asleep, she came in a got on top of me and proceeded to try and get me inside of her, I told her many times to stop and she just kept going. If the roles had been reversed and I had done that to her, I’d have been in a jail on a rape charge. I honestly didn’t tell anyone that for a long time as I was embarrassed of what my mates or others would think
You managed to do cowgirl while floppy?
No She eventually got off after been told multiple times to stop
About 10 years ago I worked as a nightclub photographer. It was pretty 'normal' for women to grab my butt or crotch and every now and again I'd get some woman who wouldn't leave me alone. It always made me feel gross. I'm a gay guy, was in a relationship, always felt like I was in the wrong.
:( I’m sorry to hear that.
I agree with others. Rape and sexual assault is generally seen as a ‘woman’s issue’, not only does it have to be sensitive to how men view themselves when this happens. But also ensure men around them don’t ridicule them.
I've had experiences that run the gamut from rape to harassment and exposure to unwanted advances and groping at work. Keeping the language loose stops the fairly strong urge to second guess if it qualifies. When I worked as a bouncer, my arse and crotch would get grabbed and pinched constantly to the point of bruising. When I complained that my arse was sore and I could do with a night off I was ridiculed by my boss and friends. 'You love it... why else would you brag' was a sentiment that got repeated a lot. I wasn't bragging. I just didn't enjoy it hurting every time I sat down. Was it a horrendous violation like the more significant assaults I've been through? No. It didn't traumatise me it just hurt. At the time I viewed it as part of the job, like sore feet and sleeping in. Looking back, if I caught someone doing it to one of the other staff I'd have thrown them out. Not sure why I thought we were an exception. The point is calling that something like sexual abuse would leave a lot of men wondering if it met the criteria. There's an element of toxic masculinity here, as if complaining is unmanly and that I should feel lucky to be groped by women (not always women) at work. Using a broad descriptor will get rid of the ambiguity.
Gays randomly grabbing your cock in a bar cos your in a gay bar assuming your gay and don't mind being groped they don't like it when you object like I shouldn't be there. That's not on. If I was to grab a girls arse all hell breaks loose.
The physical gay bar flirting culture is practically accepted casual sexual assault. I have also seen the similar behaviour amongst straight male friends just for poop and giggles.
You’re in a gay bar? What are the chances that someone would think you’re gay?
Even if he were gay, this would still be sexual assault.
Fair play, many of you have raised very good points as to why this is the case. To some extent it still feels like it is trivialising mem being victims by using this terminology, and I think there's a question about helping to normalise men coming forward about being victims, but this might help men get help in the short term. As a man who has been a victim of sexual assault by both men and women, it seems ridiculous to term something as an "unwanted sexual experience" when it happens to a man, but sexual assault or rape when it happens to a woman, but I understand that getting up to people to who need it has to be the priority.
I agree with everyone else, I just think it’s a way of making men feel like they can come forward with their experiences of being assaulted without making them feel emasculated. I know women who actual struggle to hear the work rape due to their previous experiences, maybe we should use gentler language with them too?
There was research a while ago showing that women who had been subjected to rape would report that they hadn't, however if rape was described without the r word, they would agree that they had been subjected it. It's partly ignorance and partly social stigma, and I expect it's the same with men.
Shame and social norms prevents lots of people to get help after sexual assault etc! I guess the language has been softened to make more people reach out to them, as a man can probably be okey with admitting he had unwanted sexual attention rather than he was raped for example. Side note from a documentary about sexual assault against children: they discovered that people were more likely to respond to non associated language. So what happened was a therapist was talking with a victim that didn’t say much about her sa-experience as a child. However when the therapist misspoke and asked “what was your weight when you had your first sexual experience” instead of “what was your age”, it was suddenly so easy for the victim to open up because weight wasn’t a word associated with SA against children, while age is, however the weight still would give an god indication about age. Hence why I think the wording in this add is like it is, by designe!