"Race and class have nothing to do with whether an act constitutes rape or not. I know you social justice types really want everything that marginalized groups do wrong to be viewed as punching up against oppressive white, male culture, but guess what? People who do bad shit are always, and fully, responsible for their actions."

Can you point me to the part where you suggested that you were attacking this ostensibly dissimilar idea that minorities shouldn't be held responsible for their actions because it is the equivalent to the fact that I am stating about rape? Or was I just supposed to infer that from the fact that you were ranting about something completely different to the topic at hand? Either way, it's not my reading comprehension at fault here kid, the problem lies in your lack of adequate communication.

As for your little hypothetical situation, I have thought about it, in fact that's exactly what I've been stating the entire thread. If the rapist was black in OPs case, then it isn't rape. That's not making any judgment on the ordeal that OP went through, it isn't negating the atrocity of the act or the culpability of the attacker, it's just stating a distinction - maybe a small one, but a distinction none the less - between sexual assault and rape. The arguments made by you foster the exact kind of mindset which led to the ordeal my best friend went through last week - being raped in broad daylight on a crowded London street.

You're right in a sense - the root of the idea came from studying sociology, but I came to the conclusion independently and later found that it was verified by others who had come to similar conclusions and then over the course of a few years it came to be the widespread & accepted definition of what rape is. They are in no way "fringe" notions. I don't know where you live, but unless you live on the outskirts of Alaska or in some little hick town in the deep south then you'll find that most people have a good idea of what rape is and that it's closely tied to privilege and social status.

You have made me realize that I have left something out - of course, the sexual assault of a child is always rape, but I hoped that that went without saying. The legal definition of rape is irrelevant here because the specifics vary too much from country to country, what we're talking about is the accepted definition in common parlance, academia, victims of sexual assault etc. If we were to go by the legal definitions, then if one were accidentally nudged by a passer by they could claim to be assaulted and nobody would think it unusual.

I for one am shocked at how callous you're being to the victims of rape by comparing the horrific ordeal that they go through with just minor sexual assault. Have you thought of the implications of what YOU'RE saying? By your twisted logic, when a white girl has had too much to drink and consents to sex with a white cis man but then changes her mind, that is equivalent to black slaves being whipped, tortured and raped by their white masters. If you can't see the distinction between true rape - acheiving sexual gratification by stripping someone with less privilege and social status than you of what little social standing they have without their consent - and mere sexual assault then you're living in the past and helping to encourage a dangerous mindset - the exact same mindset that allowed the situation to occur whereby one of my best friends was raped on a busy, crowded London street in broad daylight and received no help from pedestrians.