Quote:
Originally Posted by Yamer
Isn't that all really determined solely by the victim?
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For all crimes, or just sexual crimes?
Because I don't know how that would work in a legal system, or even in informal social responses. Someone who has their car broken into might be traumatized by the event and feel unsafe. Someone else might be mugged at knifepoint and get on with life and rarely give it another thought after a couple weeks. Not only do the courts handle those two acts differently, but most people are going to regard the first as a lesser crime than the second, regardless of how the victim feels about it.
Conflating exposure to masturbation with penetrative rape does not necessarily make people more sympathetic to those who are exposed to masturbation. When you refer to them both as 'sexual assault', you can diminish the impact of that term, since it can mean a whole range of offences that vary in severity.
I know these are emotional subjects, but proportionately is a fundamental principle not only of our criminal justice system, but of our moral norms. There are degrees of bad. Saying something isn't as bad as something else is not dismissing it as not bad. It's simply recognising real distinctions.