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15 April 2015 @ 09:27 pm
When a business deal goes sour  
I'm mystified by this.

This article has been in the news recently as the convicted rapist is appealing his sentence for raping a sex worker. His lawyers are arguing on the basis that there was a mistake of law made in the original trial; for there to be a rape, there had to be a lack of consent (or inability to consent) and in this case there was consent freely given.

I never understood the conviction in the first place. If you offer to buy my violin for $850, and I hand over the violin but you don't pay me, then you're basically guilty of fraud, obtaining goods by deception, theft... any of these fit, but because in this instance it's sex all of a sudden it's a whole different scale of offence? I don't get it. Sex is her livelihood, her commodity. She was defrauded by a trick and suddenly she feels that he violated her? So if there's cash involved, there's no violation? What if he'd only had half the promised money - would she be going after him for indecent assault instead? I'm all for working girls earning an honest quid but this case just has me puzzled.
Current Mood: grumpygrumpy
miwahnimiwahni on April 16th, 2015 12:34 pm (UTC)
See, this is one of those issues that really makes me think. There are so many possibilities, ambiguities and unanswered questions.

And at the end of it all, the guy who was convicted has appealed, and because his appeal won't be heard until after his jail sentence expires he's been let out on bail so obviously not considered a danger to the community. Although if I see him coming up the street with a violin case I'll be running in the opposite direction.