Rape is rape

The American public is having a lot of trouble understanding rape.

Texan politicians have told victims to “just enjoy it,” California judges say it’s OK as long as the victim isn’t married and Indiana law says it’s only rape when both sexes are involved.

That’s right, Hoosiers. While our national government discusses the difference between “rape rape” and “forcible rape” (hint: it’s all rape), our state government refuses to extend the same protection to nonconsensual same-sex intercourse as it does to that between the sexes.

In Indiana, rape is defined as “a person knowingly or intentionally having sexual intercourse with a member of the opposite sex when (1) the other person is compelled by force or the imminent threat of force, (2) the other person is unaware that the sexual intercourse is occurring, or (3) the other person is so mentally disabled or deficient that consent to sexual intercourse cannot be given.”  

What makes same-sex rape different from rape between the sexes? Are victims less traumatized, less disempowered, when their genitalia is the same as that of their attacker?

If you are forced, unconscious or mentally disabled, it is rape. Sex happened, and you didn’t want it to. End of story.

To exclude same-sex intercourse from the definition of rape is unconscionable. These experiences are instead classified as “criminal deviate conduct.”  Though the recommended sentencing for those convicted of criminal deviate conduct is the same as rape, it carries less societal import.   

The need for two different classifications — rape as a heterosexual crime and criminal deviate conduct as a homosexual crime — reflects how deeply ingrained homophobia is in our society. Simply defining deviate sexual contact as any nonconsensual act involving “(1) a sex organ of one person and the mouth or anus of another person; or (2) the penetration of the sex organ or anus of a person by an object,” Indiana is making it clear that it thinks homosexual intercourse is strange, scary, disgusting and an abomination.

American society has systematically undervalued same-sex relationships in general. It’s similar to the idea that it doesn’t count as losing your virginity if there is no penis-in-vagina action.

The truth: there is an array of activity that counts as sex to a lot of people, and to be forced to unwillingly perform these acts is just as traumatizing as anything falling under Indiana’s current definition of rape.  

By excluding nonconsensual same-sex intercourse, our state further marginalizes its LGBTQ population and makes it harder for individuals to report same-sex rape. The general populace has stigmatized homosexual intercourse enough for willing participants to keep their sex lives a secret.

How do we expect victims of same-sex rape to react when this stigmatization has been codified into law? It is hard enough to report a rape without having to refer to what happened as “deviate conduct.”

Rape is rape is rape, regardless of the sex of those involved.