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Rape. She raped those boys. Use the correct terminology.
Legally speaking women cannot be rapists in the UK at least from what I remember.
Then the UK is wrong.
I dunno. I almost think there should be a different term or word for it. I'm not saying it's OK at all, I just think bundling so many sexual crimes under one name isn't great.
For example; I was a horny teen and probably would have been into a teacher like that. It would have been wrong and it likely would have messed up different aspects of my life. I'm not condoning it or trying to downplaying it, but I feel if I had been violently been penetrated against my will by a male teacher the trauma would be a whole different kind.
So yeah, I don't know if we should call it rape, but I recognize the boys were underage and taken advantage of, and the crime absolutely deserves to be punished. I'm also the person who get's all worked up by modern loose usage WMD and many others, so I know I can be a handful.
Maybe that young girl wanted to have sex with an older man? Maybe there was no force involved at all?
NOOOOOO!!! RAPE IS RAPE! SIMPLE AS THAT!
I get that you want to separate sex by force from sex by free will but when it comes to kids there can never be consent and it defaults to rape. It should not be minimized just because a female teacher raped young boys.
Edit: If you want a different definition for what happens to someone being forced or not you could call it rape with assault or rape with {whatever}. I don't think the rape part should be minimized in any way. Just extended in brutality if anything.
The issue with that definition, legally, is if two 12 year olds have sex with each other, they would now both end up in jail.
Things like that have happened in the USA btw because the law is set that way.
The problem isn't whether they can or can't consent at that age - humans don't magically gain some universal phenomena of consent at some arbitrary number.
It's the lack of foresight and knowledge of consequences, as well as the physical and mental health risks for young girls who get pregnant. That's why it's bad.
That's also why the best defense against pedophilia is education about sex. And why the right wing globally usually is against sex education.
If they know what it is and what it can cause, it'll be much harder for them to be convinced or tricked by an adult.
I really don't get what you are trying to say here.
So what does the law in the US say now then? That the boy gets thrown in jail?
Why would you not make exceptions for kids under the age of 15 to have sex with kids under 15 and kids over 15 but under 18 to have sex with kids over 15 but under 18? Granted that they both gave consent.
In normal countries a kid can not consent to have sex with adults and it would be defined as rape and general sexual education is not frowned upon.
The US las varies by state, but in some cases only the boy goes to jail. In other both go to jail.
Even your proposal of
Has issues. For example, if two teens were already having sex at 14 but one turns 15, although legal before, it's suddenly illegal, even if consenting.
Same with 17 to 18.
That's why your statement of "underage automatically does not equal consent" doesn't legally work.
What I think would work better than a simple lower limit age ban would be to also include an upper limit age ban as well. I think perhaps of 2 years for 13 and under and 3 years for 14-18.
That way, if say a 17 year old has a partner that turns 18 or 19, there's no issues. But if an adult that's 22 (or older) does something with a 17 year old it's illegal.
This gives room for consent, because teens are able to consent - they should just be able to do so safely with their peers, rather than because they are targeted by older, more experienced/manipulative adults.
Weird how this is not an issue in most other countries and that America always has to make everything complicated or convoluted. Arresting two minors for having sex with each other with consent is weird as fuck. I really don't understand why America has to be this extreme with everything. You guys never have nuance, it's either all or nothing. Fuck the kids or fuck them kids!
In my country the law says that you are sexually mature at the age of 15, which means that as an adult can have sex with a 15 year old. However, recording or taking pictures of sexual acts are still considered illegal until you reach the age of 18.
Do you know what we don't have? Lots of pedoes. Because the vast majority of people realize that having sex with a 15 year old is creepy as fuck and they do not find it attractive. We also have good sexual education so that everyone, especially the younger people, can make informed decisions.
And having sex with a minor here (under the age of 15) is always considered rape in the eyes of the law if you are an adult. That said, most parents or the kids themselves won't care if a 14 year old had sex with a 16 year old and they won't make a big deal out of it as long as there was consent. Because everything is not black or white. We have nuance.
Jaywalking is also illegal here but nobody cares, not even the police, because if nobody got hurt or you didn't put other people at harms way then there's no reason to make a big deal out of it.
But getting back to the topic, I do really think that a female teacher "having sex" with a minor boy is rape and should be called out as such. There's no reason to minimize her crime and call it something else.
I don't think they were trying to say that it should be minimised. But we should define crimes precisely. After all we make a distinction between murder by intent, murder by negligence, and murder by proxy. They're all still murder, and they all still result in lifetime sentences, but we make the distinction.
And those crimes are all called murder with additioal context added. Calling a rape something other than rape is minimizing it. We don't need "another word" for rape.
They define rape as penetration
Good news is she did seem to actually be punished with a sizable prison sentence (by uk standards)
She got pregnant, so I'm pretty sure there was penetration
No only the person who does the penetration can rape under uk law.
The more I hear about that place the less it makes sense
The more I hear about that place the more it makes sense how America got where it is.
In a lot of jurisdictions rape is definited in that narrow way, but there is a crime with equal punishment that catches the rest of sexual crimes that you might call rape in america.
As per usual.
Do I look like I give a fuck what the law says? They were underage, ergo could not give consent, ergo it was rape. Also power dynamics teacher pupil makes it even more rapey
Why is this downvoted?
In the UK, the definition of rape requires penetration from the offending party by their genitalia. So unless the teacher has a monster clit she used to anally penetrate the boys, the definition of rape can't apply. For that there's the broader definition of sexual assault.
Journalists, since their purpose is to serve the public with the truth, have to really carefully choose their words as using the wrong legal term can get them in hot water - libel lawsuits and such, not to mention accusations of trying to shape the public's opinion, and so on.
So yeah, you'll rarely find directly said out statements in the news as most journos will try to get to as close to the definition as possible without exposing themselves to legal action. That's why you'll often see e.g. statements like "the purported killer" even if there's clear evidence of the person being the murderer, simply because the case hasn't been judged yet therefore the legal term murderer - which requires a conviction - cannot be applied, and using it before the trial even happens is a big no-no.
Don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you that if it was a man with two young girls, the article would be going on the offensive much quicker, and even here they should've used the term "sexually assaulted" instead of "had sex with", but specifically the term rape cannot apply here.
Thank you for the informative reply. As a layman in another country who isn't worried about specific local laws, I'd like to add that she raped at least two children.
New York had (has?) a similar distinction. It came up in the E Jean Carrol saga; specifically Trump suing for defamation after her lawsuit, because it wasn’t- technically- rape.
IIRC it was dismissed with the judge saying that it fits the modern lay definition of rape and that’s not defamation.
They didn’t call it “sexual assault” either, so I’m inclined to not accept that excuse.
So the IDF can bring their dogs and iron bars, to the UK, and that's not rape...
... Gets me wondering wtf law makers in the UK are up to.
The UK's law is precedent based. The definition of rape thus goes back all the way to the 1800s (like many other restrictive laws that need to be revisited, e.g. classifying any transportation device with any kind of engine, i.e. not human or animal propelled, as a vehicle thus forcing the owners of e.g. low end e-scooters to have licences, registration, insurance etc. without providing the framework for any of these), wherein rape was almost exclusively committed by men, therefore lawmakers found it proper to define it as penetration of the victim using one's genitalia - in a way to differentiate from "lesser" sexual assaults like flashing someone or forcing their hands on said genitalia.
So, like not using an object of some sort?
Still seems like a more generic term such as "sexual assault" would be applicable here.
It would, but that's a very broad term. I expect they were trying to be specific, but only succeeded in being forgiving in the headline.
Til. So in the UK only men (or those with dicks) can rape?
Blatantly, by the very next words.
I agree, but there are libel laws to consider here. It serves no one to open yourself up to a lawsuit, especially one from which the rapist can only benefit.
Thankfully I'm not a citizen of TERF Island. She raped them.
Hi! I'm not worried about being sued. She raped at least two children.
I was more referring to the news outlet. Regular folks like you and I aren't much at risk of being sued for libel.
Trump: hold my 12 year old… beer
That's only because uk libel laws are backwards and stupid.
iftfy
I don't think someone would win the libel case and bad cases SLAP lawsuits aren't really a meaningful thing here (we have protections against shit lawsuits)
Underage is literally a legal definition, so clearly you do care. Calm down.
methinks yes?
if not you, then at least journalistic integrity in the UK does
I agree with you, my comment was meant to draw attention to the crappy law.
Which is fucked up frankly because that's clearly not true.
I'm going to take a guess that, if they were over the age of consent, it would have been consensual.
That does not matter lmao
Why not? The law is made up, you know.
that would be to 'harsh'
You need me to tiktok it to you? it is r*pe
Like I just said within my reply to the original post:
So (unless the thing the other reply to this said ["Legally speaking women cannot be rapists in the UK"] is true), then, that's "statutory rape" [regardless of their informed consent]. Yup. Though I'm not convinced it's necessarily "correct".