Under Article 130 of the New York Penal Law , “rape” is when someone engages in sexual intercourse with another person by some means of forcible compulsion or who is in any way incapable of giving consent.
” Sexual abuse” is any other form of sexual contact with someone by force or without that person's consent. These crimes are commonly referred to as “sexual assault”. Examples include engaging in sexual activity with a person against his or her will, or with a person who cannon consent to the activity because he or she is unconscious or overcome by threat, fear, drugs, alcohol or other circumstances that impair mental capacity or that makes him or her physically helpless.
“Acquaintance Rape” and the Legal System:
Most victims of rape and sexual abuse are assaulted by someone they know, such as a classmate, friend or relative. While the criminal law does not differentiate “stranger rape” from “acquaintance rape,” in reality, “acquaintance rape” cases can be much more difficult to prosecute.
Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault:
Alcohol and other drugs are often contributing factors in sexual assault, and under New York law, it is illegal to use such substances to facilitate sexual assault. Moreover, engaging in sexual intercourse with someone who is unable to give consent for any reason, such as being intoxicated or unconscious, constitutes rape.
Rape is defined as sexual intercourse by a friend, acquaintance or stranger:
where the victim is temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling his or her conduct owing to the influence of alcohol or other drugs he or she consumed or to any other act committed upon him or her without his or her consent.
Sexual assault is defined as sexual acts, which include but are not limited to unwanted touching of an intimate part of another person such as sexual organ, buttocks or breasts; sodomy' oral copulation' and rape by foreign object by a friend, acquaintance or stranger:
