Sexsomnia is simply a variant of sleepwalking, which affects 1 to 2% of adults. … The woman awoke to discover that her underwear had been removed and a glassy-eyed Luedecke was trying to rape her. She pushed him off, ran to the washroom, and returned to find him standing there bewildered. Luedeke, who had an established history of sleepwalking behaviors, was acquitted after [a] psychiatrist … testified … [that he] was in a dissociative state when the incident occurred and therefore he was not consciously aware of his actions. (
Like drunks, sleepwalkers seem somewhat incapacitated, so perhaps they should be excused from crimes to a similar degree as drunks.
They're a lot more incapacitated than drunks. As Kahneman puts it, their System 1 is in complete control. They're just acting on associations and incapable of executing a plan or even acting consistently with their own Immediate aggrandizement.
But that just means sleepwalking is a bad example for the point you want to make. "Accidents" do allow motivated behavior despite the absence of conscious intention. This tolerance expresses a moralistic belief that culpability resides in acts of "free will," but the doctrine might serve the function you note. (See my Free Will and Legal Intent: Consequences of a Myth's Demise -- http://tinyurl.com/35d37l9)
No discussion of consent? How evil of you. I have been "raped" many times in my sleep and I loved it. That's because sex is awesome and anyone I'm going to sleep in a bed with is someone I want to fuck. Somebody having sex with you in your sleep that you have no sexual relationship with is rape. Someone having sex with you in your sleep that you do have a sexual relationship with is fine, unless you state it is not. But any man who is with such an uptight beeyatch should go find someone who likes sleep sex, and there are many. Oh, it's just the best thing to be woken up to that... MMmmm.
Just a reminder - sleep-rapist is no more in control of his actions than a drunk girl consenting to sex. So you can't put the blame on sleep-rapists and not put the blame on drunk girls at the same time.
Cannot be compared to a drunk person raping someone, because that person chose to get drunk. So even if they don't remember the incident at all, it is still their fault. As humans, we need sleep, so "sleep rape", if it does in fact exist, would not be the fault of the rapist.
Yes, but in this case you would create a burden of proof on the prosecution’s side that a perpetrator has been fully conscious while committing a crime
The prosecution's side is where the burden of proof belongs. Given that I think criminality requires being fully conscious, I don't see a problem here. Indeed, you could use that same argument in the general context: "If you don't criminalize X, then there will be a burden of proof on the prosecution to show that the person wasn't doing X!" Yes, that's right.
However, note that sleep-rape is statistically much rarer than actual rape. So attributing a rape to sleep-rape will require some specific evidence, such as the defendant having a history of somnambulation, and/or being highly unlikely to commit an actual rape, etc.
Yes, but in this case you would create a burden of proof on the prosecution's side that a perpetrator has been fully conscious while committing a crime. Is there any way to reliably distinguish sleep-rape from wake-rape if the rapist has even remotely reasonable acting skills?
When you can’t control your own body properly, the resulting legal risk is yours
Despite your having called it "another step toward the ultimate nanny state", you are advocating exactly the policy I described: "laws that compel people to take precautions against their unconscious" -- i.e. forcing people to assume legal responsibility for their unconscious actions.
I am against this, because I don't believe the problem is sufficiently common. From my point of view, the victim was injured in a freak accident. If this type of accident were common, then you could conceivably justify a legal remedy -- whether explicitly requiring precautions, or punishing people after the fact (I don't view the distinction as relevant in this context).
I know someone who was raped by someone in their sleep. I don't like the perpetrator anyway. It would be very easy for me to say he should be punished.
Still, I don't feel like this simple "punish sleep rapers" captures anything meaningful. Blithe accusations of "he really must have wanted to do it" are ham-handed on their face.
Plus there is the fact that both people were asleep when the sex was happening. Why is the man at fault and not the woman?
Point taken. But a. ambien alters brain chemistry, and b., I would hesitate to base any knowledge of criminology on CSI.
That said, there is far too little understood about the brain and behavior to say one way or another, a situation further hindered by all the usual hang ups regarding freewill and conditioning, and further hindered again by the limitations inherent in even a more completed ''science' of behavior'.
However, psychological knowledge of behavior tends to favor associations between actions (patterns) rather than strong disconnects. At best we could find strong correlations, and even then we are left with the question of whether or not one is 'responsible', even in the slightest, for associated and unintended consequences of holding objectifying sexual preferences, where I would (after all that) still say 'no', 'not responsible'.
Either way, a first step here is to study the correlations and see what we might find. Again, I don't think anybody would be surprised by a correlation between holding objectifying sexual preferences and the occurrence unconscious rape.
Like drunks, sleepwalkers seem somewhat incapacitated, so perhaps they should be excused from crimes to a similar degree as drunks.
They're a lot more incapacitated than drunks. As Kahneman puts it, their System 1 is in complete control. They're just acting on associations and incapable of executing a plan or even acting consistently with their own Immediate aggrandizement.
But that just means sleepwalking is a bad example for the point you want to make. "Accidents" do allow motivated behavior despite the absence of conscious intention. This tolerance expresses a moralistic belief that culpability resides in acts of "free will," but the doctrine might serve the function you note. (See my Free Will and Legal Intent: Consequences of a Myth's Demise -- http://tinyurl.com/35d37l9)
What? Are you really serious? They're both asleep, but the woman was almost raped, for krist's sake. You're not even helping.
No discussion of consent? How evil of you. I have been "raped" many times in my sleep and I loved it. That's because sex is awesome and anyone I'm going to sleep in a bed with is someone I want to fuck. Somebody having sex with you in your sleep that you have no sexual relationship with is rape. Someone having sex with you in your sleep that you do have a sexual relationship with is fine, unless you state it is not. But any man who is with such an uptight beeyatch should go find someone who likes sleep sex, and there are many. Oh, it's just the best thing to be woken up to that... MMmmm.
Just a reminder - sleep-rapist is no more in control of his actions than a drunk girl consenting to sex. So you can't put the blame on sleep-rapists and not put the blame on drunk girls at the same time.
Cannot be compared to a drunk person raping someone, because that person chose to get drunk. So even if they don't remember the incident at all, it is still their fault. As humans, we need sleep, so "sleep rape", if it does in fact exist, would not be the fault of the rapist.
Yes, but in this case you would create a burden of proof on the prosecution’s side that a perpetrator has been fully conscious while committing a crime
The prosecution's side is where the burden of proof belongs. Given that I think criminality requires being fully conscious, I don't see a problem here. Indeed, you could use that same argument in the general context: "If you don't criminalize X, then there will be a burden of proof on the prosecution to show that the person wasn't doing X!" Yes, that's right.
However, note that sleep-rape is statistically much rarer than actual rape. So attributing a rape to sleep-rape will require some specific evidence, such as the defendant having a history of somnambulation, and/or being highly unlikely to commit an actual rape, etc.
Generic rape is also difficult to prove, since you have to show (beyond a reasonable doubt) that consent was not given.
That said, we can distinguish between passive defenses and active defenses. That would place the burden on the defendant to prove he was asleep.
Yes, but in this case you would create a burden of proof on the prosecution's side that a perpetrator has been fully conscious while committing a crime. Is there any way to reliably distinguish sleep-rape from wake-rape if the rapist has even remotely reasonable acting skills?
"Criminalize X to prevent people accused of Y from claiming they did X" is a terrible general policy.
When you can’t control your own body properly, the resulting legal risk is yours
Despite your having called it "another step toward the ultimate nanny state", you are advocating exactly the policy I described: "laws that compel people to take precautions against their unconscious" -- i.e. forcing people to assume legal responsibility for their unconscious actions.
I am against this, because I don't believe the problem is sufficiently common. From my point of view, the victim was injured in a freak accident. If this type of accident were common, then you could conceivably justify a legal remedy -- whether explicitly requiring precautions, or punishing people after the fact (I don't view the distinction as relevant in this context).
If the victim knows they have been sleep-raped, should the victim have the option to request a ligher/no punishment?
"Plus there is the fact that both people were asleep when the sex was happening. Why is the man at fault and not the woman?"
Because everyone knows men are evil and expendable and women are noble and valuable.
This is difficult to write.
I know someone who was raped by someone in their sleep. I don't like the perpetrator anyway. It would be very easy for me to say he should be punished.
Still, I don't feel like this simple "punish sleep rapers" captures anything meaningful. Blithe accusations of "he really must have wanted to do it" are ham-handed on their face.
Plus there is the fact that both people were asleep when the sex was happening. Why is the man at fault and not the woman?
Point taken. But a. ambien alters brain chemistry, and b., I would hesitate to base any knowledge of criminology on CSI.
That said, there is far too little understood about the brain and behavior to say one way or another, a situation further hindered by all the usual hang ups regarding freewill and conditioning, and further hindered again by the limitations inherent in even a more completed ''science' of behavior'.
However, psychological knowledge of behavior tends to favor associations between actions (patterns) rather than strong disconnects. At best we could find strong correlations, and even then we are left with the question of whether or not one is 'responsible', even in the slightest, for associated and unintended consequences of holding objectifying sexual preferences, where I would (after all that) still say 'no', 'not responsible'.
Either way, a first step here is to study the correlations and see what we might find. Again, I don't think anybody would be surprised by a correlation between holding objectifying sexual preferences and the occurrence unconscious rape.
If sleep-rapists aren't punished, what keeps non-sleep-rapists to pretend that they were sleep-raping instead of wake-raping?
Read Mark Kleiman's "When Brute Force Fails". Punishment that is swift and certain does deter, even hardened addicts.