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04/06/2006: "Another consultation"

... likely to be of interest to various libertarians, lefties, & sexual deviants of my acquaintance. The Scottish Law Commission is conducting a consultation on Rape and Other Sexual Offences . Not the most cheerful of topics, I grant you, but there are some serious principles up for debate here. The Commission, for example, is seeking views on consensual sado-masochistic activities, and on retaining a seperate crime of incest (as distinct from child abuse & breach of trust offences). It's also looking at some of the more 'out there' practices, like bestiality & necrophilia.

Lurid & prurient? Well, maybe. But together with reproductive and genetic technologies, and maybe euthanasia, such matters probably pose the biggest test of our society's tolerance. Is the fact that it turns many a stomach reason enough to prosecute an adult brother & sister for having intercourse? Or a bunch of eager grown-ups from taking the Black & Decker to each others backsides?

Simply put, should our sex lives be subject to the tastes & whims & prejudices of our neighbours? I've seen a bit, & heard tell of a lot more, of bedroom goings-on that really, really spoil my lunch. By why the hell should I want to sling anyone in jail for that? (Unless, of course, they like that...)

The eugenic objection to incest is even more pernicious. Should we criminalise intercourse between a married couple who already have a child affected by an inherited genetic disease? After all, while siblings have a somewhat higher chance of carrying complementary recessive genes, we already know the married couple run that risk. Are we back to the days of locking up disabled folk in case they want to mate?

Anyway, just wanted to bring it to people's attention, and enconcourage you to stick in a reply. I suspect considered responses will be pretty thin on the ground.

Replies: 4 Comments

Closing date for comments, btw, is 1st May. So get, em, cracking.

CJG said @ 04/06/2006 04:28 PM GMT

Unfortunately I missed the deadline, and in any event I doubt that a comment from England would be regarded as helpful, since doubtless Scottish sexual proclivities are entirely different to those south of the border, and particularly west of the Tamar. (e.g. What do you call a sheep tied to a tree? A Cornish leisure centre.)

I find it hard to envisage the Scottish Law Commission sitting around a table sipping Earl Grey while they discuss consensual fisting.

>>It's also looking at some of the more 'out there' practices, like bestiality & necrophilia.

That was a very interesting chapter. I am glad I am not a Scots cow. I'm not clear why the fact that bestiality is rarely prosecuted indicates that it ought not to be a distinct crime. High treason is rarely prosecuted too, as is piracy, but I hear no clamour to strike them from the law books. I also admire the legal fiction that a woman cannot commit bestiality, since many of us recall those French postcards of ladies with Shetland ponies that so enlivened our youths. As for necrophilia, I can quite believe that no specific legal offence exists but I'm sure the Procurator Fiscal could come up with one if necessary, and the SLC's current mode of thought might prove restrictive.

>>Is the fact that it turns many a stomach reason enough to prosecute an adult brother & sister for having intercourse? Or a bunch of eager grown-ups from taking the Black & Decker to each others backsides?

No, since the same applies to sushi and I have no wish to criminalise that. I suppose that public policy might legitimately oppose conduct risking a damaged baby whose upkeep might fall on the state, but if the protagonists ensured that such an outcome was unlikely, I see no reason to intervene. I was never sure why the celebrated case of the s-m group prosecuted for rubbing each others' testicles with sandpaper ever came to court, unless the Chief Constable was not allowed to join in, but I wonder if Black & Decker will have to add an exclusion to their warranty?

>>Simply put, should our sex lives be subject to the tastes & whims & prejudices of our neighbours?

Assuming no coercion or exploitation of those lacking mental capacity, I think not, though I think Patricia Hewitt should be denied any form of sexual enjoyment as a matter of principle.

>>Are we back to the days of locking up disabled folk in case they want to mate?

You mean like BNP voters?

>I suspect considered responses will be pretty thin on the ground.

Will we ever know? Were learned professors up late into the night at the weekend putting together their paper on Corroboration in Sexual Offences? And, by the way, how did courts ever obtain corroboration of what went on behind closed doors, before forensics lent a hand?

It's a shame John Knox isn't around to give an opinion on the matter.

Graham Brack said @ 05/03/2006 07:36 PM GMT

Hi, Graham.

'since doubtless Scottish sexual proclivities are entirely different to those south of the border'

it's the cold, you know. amd the Irn Bru.

'I find it hard to envisage the Scottish Law Commission sitting around a table sipping Earl Grey while they discuss consensual fisting.'

Being passably acquainted with one or two of the members, I find it all too easy to imagine...

'I suppose that public policy might legitimately oppose conduct risking a damaged baby whose upkeep might fall on the state'

Only if it consistently applied the same considerations to couples known to carry 'damaging' genes. If, say, Raj and Shahana Hashmi are allowed to try for another child who has a 1:4 chance of turning out like Zain, I can see no reason to restrict related couples on the basis that they might carry a matching pair of His & Her recessives for something nasty.

'I wonder if Black & Decker will have to add an exclusion to their warranty?'

I say caveat emptor.

'It's a shame John Knox isn't around to give an opinion on the matter.'

Scotland, as you should know, is a hotbed (coldbed?) of grim Presbytarian asceticism. Life only becomes difficult when it comes to our attention that some deviants actually enjoy cold showers and hair shirts.

CJG said @ 05/14/2006 07:42 PM GMT

"it's the cold, you know. amd the Irn Bru."

No doubt Barr's would love to take the credit. I can't help feeling that if Scots were as rampant as some claim, there wouldn't be 5 million of you and 50 million of us.

>>'I suppose that public policy might legitimately oppose conduct risking a damaged baby whose upkeep might fall on the state'

>Only if it consistently applied the same considerations to couples known to carry 'damaging' genes.

I'd have italicized the "might" in my comment if I'd realised I could. It was a sort of dubious, rising-tone, just about possible "might". Our law lecturer at college used to convey a whole range of meanings by the way he expressed the words "may" and "may not", from rank disapproval to grudging acceptance.

>>'I wonder if Black & Decker will have to add an exclusion to their warranty?'

>I say caveat emptor.

The poor old guy on the Clapham omnibus might get another outing, I suppose. Given that this iconic everyman would now be pretty much rara avis (who uses buses in Clapham these days?), who should replace him as the example ordinary man in the street?

>>'It's a shame John Knox isn't around to give an opinion on the matter.'

>Scotland, as you should know, is a hotbed (coldbed?) of grim Presbytarian asceticism. Life only becomes difficult when it comes to our attention that some deviants actually enjoy cold showers and hair shirts.

There's that lovely line in one of George MacDonald Fraser's books when he says his Wee Free gran used to head for kirk on Sunday to check up on what the Lord had been up to during the week, in case he had been granting salvation to Catholics.

Graham Brack said @ 05/16/2006 04:12 PM GMT