About that "rape by deception"

*Trigger warning for sexual assault scenario

Last I wrote about it, I'll admit, I was angry, and what I said about that particular case I still stand by, but what if the case actually had been as we had initially thought? A few posts ago, I listed some "gray rape" scenarios and explained why each was either clearly rape or clearly sex. Rape by deception generally actually refers to instances such as a man turning out the lights and pretending to be woman's husband before sleeping with her, something I listed as rape for obvious reasons, which I won't explain here. If you want the explanation, visit my "gray rape" post. Another example of rape by deception would be a police officer telling a person ze caught that ze will let hir off if ze has 'sex' with hir, and the officer then did not let hir off. That's rape for other reasons too, obviously. So what about what we believed this case to be? Claims went from "She specifically said she wanted a long-term relationship with only a Jewish man, and he said he was Jewish" to "They were in the heat of the moment and she asked if he was Jewish and he said yes" to "She didn't even ask if he was Jewish or not; she just assumed because his nickname was considered Jewish". Not in any particular order, and there were all sorts of in between, but since these are the ones that stood out to me, these are what I will tackle.

"She specifically said she wanted a long-term relationship with only a Jewish man, and he said he was Jewish."

Much as the racism inherent here bothers me, I still have to say yes, this would be rape, and no one deserves to be raped, not even a racist. What makes it rape? She would specifically have told him what conditions would be necessary for him to have sex with her (in this case, that he belonged to a specific ethnicity or religion), and he would have deliberately ignored them, thus disregarding her and I consider sexual assault to be any use by the perpetrator of the sexual parts of either victim or perpetrator, or an overt sexual situation, to disregard, intimidate, humiliate, or harm the victim.

"They were in the heat of the moment and she asked if he was Jewish and he said yes."

The correct answer for him to say would be "Why?" Personally, I would be a little disgusted and certainly turned off if my partner suddenly asked my ethnicity or religion. I would ask "Why?" if nothing else than to see if my partner were only asking so as to make sure he wouldn't offend my culture or religion. Still, I have to say that unless the partner was insinuating she wouldn't have sex with him otherwise or otherwise displaying a retraction of consent, I'm going to have to say no, this wouldn't be rape. While consent can be retracted at any time, this line of questioning irrelevant to the sexual act really should have taken place beforehand if it was that important. Now, if she were to somehow realize during their sexuality that he wasn't Jewish and she were to tell him to stop, or she were to stop responding to him, and he were to continue anyway, then that would be rape. Not because she realized he wasn't Jewish but because if your sexual partner indicates in any way that ze wants you to stop, from voicing it to simply no longer participating in the act, you stop. If you don't, you're a rapist. Period.

"She didn't even ask if he was Jewish or not; she just assumed because his nickname was considered Jewish"

This is an obvious no. Look, if you wouldn't be required to disclose your ethnicity or religion, obvious or not, to an employer (well maybe you do in Israel), you sure as hell don't have to disclose it to a one-time sexual partner if ze hasn't even asked.

So there it is. The details are always important in sexual assault cases. I think I can put this to rest now, and I hope everyone who reads this post will too.