Unhealthy2 wrote:Dempublicents1 wrote:To you, perhaps. To her, it mattered. You don't get to decide whether or not her criteria for who she will and will not have sex with are acceptable.
What if she asks him what book he's reading and he says "Great Expectations" when it's really "Madame Bovary," but she only finds that out later and "to her, it matters"? Is this enough to nullify consent? If so, is it rape only if he knows that it matters to her enough to be the difference between yes and no? If it's rape regardless of his state of knowledge, does this not mean that there is a technical possibility that any case of consensual sex could be retroactively considered rape? If the taste in literature is not enough to retroactively render consent null and void, then I ask you where the lines are drawn. Race is enough. What about natural hair color? Blood type? The capacity to taste PTC?
In my view (note: my view, not necessarily the legal view), rape always requires intent. I see deception to get sex as an act of rape because the person is knowingly and intentionally interfering with the victim's ability to make an informed decision on whether or not to have sex. In my mind, it is similar to getting someone drunk in order to have sex with them. In that case, you are altering their ability to make decisions in order to favor your chances of having sex. Lying to get sex is another form of the same thing - you are intentionally giving them misinformation in order to alter their decision-making process.
This means that the liar must have reason to believe that the lie being told would factor into someone's decision to have sex. In the example you give, if the guy just doesn't want to admit to the fact that he's reading Madame Bovary, but he has no reason to believe that it will affect her decision to have sex with him, he's a liar, but he's not committing and act of rape when they have sex. However, if she gives him reason to suspect that it is important (ie. "Have you ever read Madame Bovary? I would never sleep with a man who would read that trash."), failure to correct the lie before having sex becomes an act of rape.
Some lies are rather obviously important. Most people would factor, for instance, the fact that someone was HIV+ into their decision on whether or not to have sex. The person who is HIV+ is fully aware of this fact. So lying about it is a clear attempt to prevent the other person from making an informed decision about having sex. Others aren't so clear. You would need to be given a reason to believe they are relevant.