Rape just ain’t what it used to be.

According to the New York Daily News:

The FBI’s definition of “rape” is about to get a long-awaited update, for the first time since 1929.  The revamped description will be broader, pleasing activists who say the current definition leads to the low-balling of sexual assault cases, and also discourages victims to come forward.  An agency panel voted on Tuesday to change the narrow definition that’s currently in use.

While this change is all fine and good (I think), it is interesting that some federal agency panel votes and what was rape yesterday isn’t rape today and vice versa.  I didn’t know you could do that!

But I do have a suggestion for the panel:  why not create safe, clean places where rapes can take place instead of those nasty back alleys.  After all, regardless of the definition, rapes are going to occur.  And rapes are a difficult decision for a rapist to make.  Branding someone a “rapist” for the rest of his life is not only repressive to his reproductive freedom, it is just not very compassionate.

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