New York will expand its legal definition of rape to include various forms of nonconsensual sexual contact, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday.
The state’s current limited definition was a factor in writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation case against former President Donald Trump. The jury in the federal civil trial rejected the writer’s claim last May that Trump had raped her in the 1990s, instead finding the former president responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse.
The current law defines rape as vaginal penetration by a penis. The new law broadens the definition to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact. Highlighting Carroll’s case at a bill signing ceremony in Albany, the Democratic governor said the new definition will make it easier for rape victims to bring cases forward to prosecute perpetrators. The law will apply to sexual assaults committed on or after Sept. 1.
“The problem is, rape is very difficult to prosecute,” Hochul said. “Physical technicalities confuse jurors and humiliate survivors and create a legal gray area that defendants exploit.”
The current law defines rape as vaginal penetration by a penis. The new law broadens the definition to include nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact.
Would it be so hard to include penile in there as well.
The OP isn’t great. The actual law is fairly clear that men are included.
This is copied from a reply I made further down, about the actual law:
Important to also not this:
- (a) "Oral sexual [
conduct] contact " means conduct between persons consisting of contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the anus, or the mouth and the vulva or vagina.
It does include raping a man orally explicitly in this. No hand stuff is included for anyone. The OP had poor wording, but the law seems fine. Maybe it should be expanded to using hands and other things to rape as well, but it doesn’t exclude men. The way the law is written, it isn’t rape to penetrate anyone with a dildo, for example. Also, a woman can’t rape a woman except for orally in this law.
It has some oversight, but the oversight is not men, it’s just certain methods.
§2.1 Vaginal Sexual Contact. It’s contact between a penis and vagina or vulva. There’s no directionality to it. It’s only about consent that defines who raped whom. If a woman forces contact between a penis and her vagina or vulva, she raped him with vaginal sexual contact.
It did, as the law was simply broadened to include more information … not wiped clean to only have the new information.
Their point is that the broadened law does not appear to clearly and obviously cover men being raped by women.
For instance, is it rape under this new law for a woman to forcibly use her hand to jerk off a man without his consent? If not, then shouldn’t it be?
Shouldn’t the law state that forcible and nonconsensual contact with a penis is a crime?
Do you have a copy of the new law to prove it doesn’t say anything about non-consensual contact?
No. But it is also not rape under this law for a man to forcibly use his hand to jerk off a woman.
If a woman makes non consensual contact with a mans penis using her vagina, mouth, or anus, that is rape under this law.
Perhaps the law should cover it. But the absense of hand-genital contact in the law is gender neutral.
Docking and urethrae insertion are a thing, but penetration is clearly not the sole definer because this change is about sexual contact.
They should have done this DECADES ago:
Sounds like this will also help male rape victims.
Are you sure? ‘nonconsenusual sexual contact’ sounds like it could cover more than penatrative rape.
Unfortunately the new law seems to only cover “anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact”. So unfortunately that totally excludes any kind of forced envelopment.
I was misled by the article and couldn’t find the law. The APnews explanation is misleading.
Here is the actual law link:
Does this include “forced to penetrate” so male victims can get some justice when they’re raped by women?
From the article, the new definition includes the following:
nonconsensual anal, oral, and vaginal sexual contact.
I don’t see how penetration wouldn’t be considered a form of sexual contact. Obviously there will be more sophisticated legal arguments for both sides when such an issue inevitably makes it to court, but if a woman forces a man into any form of anal, oral, or vaginal sex it should be covered based on the face value of the law.
Unfortunately this will likely have little to no impact on how seriously our society takes such cases, not to mention the problem of men not coming forward in such situations.
Iwhy wouldn’t it include unwanted penile contact if vaginal contact is pointed out? It seems like it’s worded specifically to prevent men from getting justice.
But this is just how the article explains it. It’s not the actual law.
This law is supposed to reduce ambiguity, why wouldn’t they just state genital contact to reduce the grey area further? With this new law someone could argue that the vagina owner is consenting so it isn’t rape.
Yes. The bill itself is here: https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/bills/2023/S3161
It defines sexual contact as an act between 2 people, then separately defines rape as engaging in such an act without the consent of the other person.
So, if a penis makes contact with a vagina, that is always vaginal sexual contact under this law. If someone engages in vaginal sexual contact without the consent of the other person, that is rape under this law; without reference which gender is the victim.
The specific wording is even less ambigous, because it says “he or she engages in vaginal sexual contact”. As defined by this law, there is no way for a women to engage in vaginal sexual contact with anyone other than a man [0]. Note that for this provision, all that changed was a broadening from sexual intercourse. The gender neutrality of the rape definition had always been there.
This does mean that contact between a hand or toy and a genital is not any type of sexual contact (as defined by this law), but that oversight applies to both penises and vaginas, so is not a gendered decision.
The law also defines anal and oral sexual contact, and puts them everywhere it puts vaginal sexual contact
[0] Or at least, no way for a vagina owner to engage in it without a penis owner. Since the law doesn’t really talk about gender, there was no need for special provisions to cover trans folk.
Thank Trump
