Glamour Powers: "Rape" or not?

The mind works in mysterious ways. Color, music, smells, balance, pretty much anything can affect how attractive we find people.

edited 18th Feb '11 4:16:01 AM by Clarste

I think you need to distinguish between things that influence your mind/behaviour and things that control them. Regardless of how something may influence your behaviour, you are still in control of your actions. Influence and control are two different things.

We already make distinctions for things to unacceptably influence your actions while driving — I mean I'm pretty sure the drunk guy didn't want to rear-end you at a stoplight, but the alcohol impeded his ability to not do so.

Why is sex suddenly different?

edited 18th Feb '11 10:15:38 AM by Pykrete

I don't see how the two are comparable, unless "glamour powers" would be equivalent to drugging someone to have sex with them, i.e. actually affecting their brain chemistry. Both that and drinking would fall under a loss of control.

Maybe influence isn't the best word, but I basically mean the everyday kind of influence, like advertising influencing what you choose to buy, world events influencing your politics, etc.

edited 18th Feb '11 10:35:54 AM by Talby

You're not sure how alcohol impeding brain chemistry while driving is comparable to alcohol impeding brain chemistry when deciding to have sex?

Or you're not sure how glamour affects brain chemistry? Granted, we didn't exactly lock down the nature of the glamour.

The definition in the OP is slightly unclear, so I'm not sure if having glamour powers means you're just really, REALLY good looking/attractive, or you're actually affecting the minds of other people in a way that is comparable to drugging them or some kind of mind control.

If it's the former, then the drunk driving comparison doesn't apply because alcohol screws with your brain chemistry, but someone being really good looking does not. If it's the latter, then yeah, you're right.

edited 18th Feb '11 10:45:28 AM by Talby

. The reason that we care that people drink and drive is not really the judgement issue, it is a matter of decreased coordination. Not only that if you drink and drive you are liable to be prosecuted, go to jail or pay massive fines. You are criminally liable for any damages and can be charged with homicide if you kill someone. Drinking impairs judgement but obviously we feel that you still have decision making powers.

edited 18th Feb '11 10:47:31 AM by Shrimpus

I'd say drinking inhibits your decision making abilities, more so when more thoroughly wasted. It's a hell of a lot easier to take advantage of a drunk person because they can't think straight and they can't resist well.

But as for Glamour, it really depends on the type of glamour we're talking about. The hypnosis-like ability some vampires get would definitely be considered rape because at some level the other person is being forced to do something without consent (even if they may have done it anyways if not under the glamour). The incredibly attractive illusion I don't think would be rape, once again because there's still the element of choice and all the fairy/whatever has done is make themselves more desirable.

We don't say that the guy with the Corvette is guilty of rape just because a girl whose slept with him wouldn't have if he didn't have it.

Hmm, not sure about that.

Using magic to appear more attractive/desirable - how is it different from using a make-up?

But actively influencing the mind of another - that is Mind Rape in itself even if physical sex never happened.

So I guess that would depend of whether the glamour power affects mostly perceptions or thoughts/feelings.

Oh no doubt, but it only decreases the threshold, it doesnt actually remove it, at least until you pass out. The thing is that legally speaking you are fully culpable for almost every action you take while inebrieated (except having sex.... Oddly) is fully your fault.

The problem with that logic is that it means that I am a rapist beause the aldosterone in my sweat goes into the minds of women around me and makes them like me.

edited 18th Feb '11 11:57:19 AM by Shrimpus

The thing is that legally speaking you are fully culpable for almost every action you take while inebrieated (except having sex.... Oddly) is fully your fault.

Exactly.

Which makes me think the thought at heart is more "Mind-altering influences are okay as long as it normalizes you to what we want." And that's fucking terrifying.

edited 18th Feb '11 12:18:28 PM by Pykrete

The thing is that law and society has always been perfectly happy to let the greater crime slide while harping on the minor transgression out of practicality or bias. Our entire take on mind altering substances, in the US particularly is strange, moralistic and skewed. Having little or no relation to the medicinal realities of the various substances. Likewise our stance on free will and responsibility is strange and warped. We blame people for things that aren't their fault (like ongoing poverty) and let them skate on things that are (getting drunk and waking up in a strangers bed).

Edit: OOPS! My bad, misclicked.

edited 18th Feb '11 12:37:00 PM by Voot

I would say it depends on the strength of the glamour. Can the person refuse to have sex, or not?

I'm actually working on a story where an incubus rapes a woman this way. In this case, she'd made a prior commitment to save her virginity for her one true love, so if she'd had free will, she'd have refused the sex. (Incidentally, the incubus believes that Its Not Rape If You Enjoyed It, because his kind don't have any need for free will.)

edited 18th Feb '11 12:50:30 PM by Ettina

The definition in the OP is slightly unclear, so I'm not sure if having glamour powers means you're just really, REALLY good looking/attractive, or you're actually affecting the minds of other people in a way that is comparable to drugging them or some kind of mind control.

That's because it's a slippery slope. A lot of people don't like to believe that their brain is a computer which interprets certain signals and automatically reacts a certain way.

For example, I was reading about adrenaline and arousal on Cracked.com the other day, and they were saying that most people think that attraction is causative to adrenaline when actually, it's the other way around. When our body starts generating extra adrenaline, our brain searches for external stimuli to determine the reason for it. So, if we happen to see someone attractive during this point in time, our brain figures that we're horny for them.

Now as for the volume in which this is done with "Glamour" powers, I'm leaving it up to the rest of you guys to decide that slippery slope. If (as one possible example) we take Person A who has the combined ability to make themselves look attractive to Person B and increase their adrenaline flow to levels of irresistible urge (meaning that sex is GUARANTEED), is that rape? What if the person has no control over it? And if you say that irresistibility is immoral, then at what point do you decide that a lesser volume is "acceptable"? If it gives you a 0.000001% chance to resist, is that enough to be considered a "choice"?

edited 18th Feb '11 2:18:35 PM by KingZeal

Man, sure has been rapey around this neck of the forums lately...

Very true. One of the most interesting clinical findings was that this is not just for lust. Any emotion that triggers a physical response is in turn triggered by that response. Traumatic quadriplegics universally reported a drastically reduced emotional intesity

The way I see it, it depends on the intensity. If it's just -makes person very persuasive and attractive to others-, then not really because they could still resist; it would still be morally questionable, but not much more than sleeping with a drunk person.

However, if it's an intense aura of godlike persuasion that provokes near-worship from all who see them, I'd say yes. If the person's mind is altered past the point of sanity, they can't consent.

Side note: Legally, not at all.

Irresistable Force proves that it is rape and not a nudge in the right direction.

There was a similiar debate for Half Blood Prince: at the beginning, Ginny and Molly laugh and joke about "love potion"; in the middle, Romilda poisons Ron with rape juice. Since Ginny and Molly are Good, it follows that they were talking about nudge potion, not irresistable potion.

"A lot of people don't like to believe that their brain is a computer which interprets certain signals and automatically reacts a certain way."

The human brain and computers have some things in common, but they are not the same. I'm not convinced that we are just slaves to the chemical reactions in our brains.

And you would be both right and wrong. Yes you have agency. The brain is a computer that can rewrite and rewire itself at its own direction. IE it can change both software and hardware on the fly. However there is an chemical component that just cant be ignored or overpowered. You can try all you wish but Amidate will still zonk you into a coma faster than you can say 'I am Jacks sense of self'.

The idea is that someone with a clear, rational mind, capable of making decisions should not be robbed of this faculty, and then be held accountable for actions they make under the influence.

If you like sex, and something hot walks into the club, you try hitting on it not because your brain has been hijacked, but because you recognize that you like sex, and that you would not mind your sex drive 'having its way' with your own course of action.

If humans are to be judged by anything, it should be their sense of decision making. Of course, a reasonable and responsible person should also understand the ways in which their rationality can be altered, lest the insanity plea be abused any more.

Like most people here, a power that makes you more attractive is not rape; it just changes the inputs, it doesn't hijack the decision making process. However a power that actually did impair your decision making directly would be rape.

Also, my standard for how drunk you need to be to be raped (I think this might actually be the legal standard as well, but IANAL so ask one before you do anything iffy):

If you're sober enough to initiate sex, you're sober enough to consent to sex. The logic is, since of course it doesn't make sense for there to be sex if nobody consented to it, clearly if two people are too drunk to consent to sex no sex should actually be going on. So therefore, if you are sober enough to start sex you are still able to consent.

This means, essentially, you're sober enough to consent for almost exactly as long as you're sober enough to stay conscious, with maybe the period slightly before where you're babbling pointlessly with no real drive to speak of also verboten. Very nice and clean, and gets rid of that silly "but what if we both rape each other?" scenario.

So if a guy knows a girl he wants to bang but who isn't reciprocating is at a party, spikes the drink so she gets drunk, and then pressures her while she's drunk until she caves, that's not rape?

Excuse me, I need to take a nausea pill.

I might also add that it's not a guarantee that both parties will be "initiating" sex.

edited 19th Feb '11 11:47:23 AM by Pykrete

I suppose that using the 'glamour is like being drunk' metaphor, using mind-altering glamour on someone without their knowledge is like spiking somebody's drink to get them drunk without them knowing.

If it's common knowledge that you have this power, though, that's a bit less unethical.