Dutch Court Rules Forced Tongue Kiss Is Not Rape

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The Dutch Supreme Court reversed a 1998 decision that a forced kiss counted as “unwanted sexual penetration,” and therefore rape, the AP reports. Today the five-judge panel overturned a lower court’s rape conviction of “a man who forced his tongue into the mouth of a woman in a hospital restroom.” According to the ruling, a forced kiss is now considered an indecent assault, which has an eight-year maximum sentence, as opposed to rape’s twelve-year maximum sentence. Internationally, forced kisses are still considered grounds for permanently ejecting someone from your cadre of drinking buddies.