Letter of the law saved Alvin's bacon, I'm thinking. Massachusetts needs to get with the program.

This seems like one of those icky gray areas of legality, where someone's clearly immoral and wrong act makes it seem clear cut but on further reflection it isn't. If we define sex via fraud as rape, where does that definition end? Is this in the same moral ballpark as the man or woman who lies about their financial status, or employment, or connections in order to obtain sex? What about a man or woman who promises fidelity, or a simple call the next day and doesn't deliver? Assholes one and all, but criminals? Certainly, such a narrowly-construed law as Massachusetts's is insufficient -- you can't change your mind about consenting to sex after the fact (though before and during certainly should be protected), but she never would have consented in the first place.

I don't know. It just doesn't seem so clear-cut. And if that means I get tarred as a misogynist, so be it.

Could this woman have been so dense as to not know whom she's fucking? Do you really want to so infantilize women to the point where tricking them into sex is the equvilant of a brutal attack and assault?

Seems like a no-brainer to me...

What the court said was that they followed the law, and if the law said something different they would have followed that too.

Here is Murphy:

The message that the court sends today is ... that a man's ability to obtain sex through fraud with regard to who he is is more important than a woman's fundamental right to control her own body," said Wendy J. Murphy, a professor at the New England School of Law. "It is impossible -- as a matter of fact and law -- to consent to sex with the wrong person.

Here also is Murphy:

http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/wendy-murphy-file.html

To suggest [the indicted players] were well behaved: Hitler never beat his wife either. So what?

--“The Situation,” 5 June 2006

I bet one or more of the players was, you know, molested or something as a child.

--“CNN Live,” 3 May 2006

I never, ever met a false rape claim, by the way. My own statistics speak to the truth.

--“The Situation,” 5 June 2006

Why the hell would Broadsheet cite Murphy as anything other than a dipshit.

Stop letting Murphy intellectually rape you.

Lying to get laid? If we criminalize that, we're going to need a lot more prisons. Seriously people, get real.

This case seems like pretty clear-cut non-consensual sex--assuming, of course that the woman is telling the truth about having thought the brother was her boyfriend, which frankly sounds a bit fishy to me. Let's be honest here: How likely is it that somebody could mistake somebody else for their boyfriend/girlfriend in bed? Vision is not our only (or, in bed, our most active) sense, people. Did the brother behave so much like the boyfriend in bed that she couldn't tell? Did he smell just like the boyfriend? Sound like him? Seems this isn't so clear-cut after all, and maybe sex-by-fraud isn't the issue.

But if it is, then we need to understand what we mean by fraud. If I somehow fool a woman into thinking I'm her boyfriend and manage to have sex with her, then I suppose that's one thing. But what if I just pretend to be something I'm not? Say I notice a woman in a restaurant or a bar, strike up a conversation with her, and lie my way into her bed? Suppose she wouldn't have sex with me unless I'm rich, so I tell her I'm a hedge-fund manager. Or suppose she only goes for doctors, so I tell her I'm a brain surgeon. It's not difficult to pass for either of these things if you're well dressed, and people do it all the time. Then, when we've had sex, she finds out I'm actually a semi-starving English lit. major and is understandably a bit miffed... What then? Obviously, I obtained sex through fraudulent means, but does anybody (anyone reasonable, I should say) actually want to call this rape?

For that matter: how many guys have, shall we say, exaggerated their true feelings for a woman in order to get her into bed? Have we really gotten to the point where we're prepared to call poor old Matthew Arnold a would-be rapist?

I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying her story...It fails a number of logic tests...

She's asking me to believe that:

The brother felt the same physicly as her boyfriend? My girlfriend and her sister look almost alike, but even in the dark I am going to know the difference. I can't believe that someone with intimate knowledge of someone physicly is not going to be able to imediately spot something wrong. His breath, his body, his 'performance', all would be suspect quite quickly.

I dont believe it for a moment.. this is clearly a case of he said she said, and while I do very much sypathize with true victims of rape, I find it hard in this case to side with the 'vitim'.

Hasnt there been any lessons learned from the Duke rape case?? Women ARE capable of lying..... believe it or not.

The previous poster got the problem with such an expansion of the law right. Where do you draw the line? Can any exaggerated claim or perceived misrepresentation warrant a rape charge-- i.e., "I was led to believe he/she liked me as a person"?

God bless the victims advocates, but at some point you've got to recognize the limits of the law--even here in the USA.

Consensual sex is a persuasive act. Persuasive acts can be manipulative. There is at least some room to bring in contract law. However, considering the absence of documents, good luck building a case!

If we equate this offense (and it is an offense) with a full-blown attack involving forced sex, then don't we run into the problem of the equation working the direction?

Who wants to tell the victim of an actual attack that (minus a few details) the crime committed against her is the same as the crime committed in this case?

Sex through fraud should be illegal, but calling it rape diminishes the real thing.