>How is that rape?
It is molestation because a safety protocol has not been used.
This is nothing like your example of sending an email. This is about ensuring personal health and safety. The charges are he deliberately deceived her over this.
The latter, as I've said, may still be criminal. But it's not rape.
The logic being applied here is that she consented to protected sex, not unprotected sex. If we want to split hairs over whether that distinction is meaningful, let's look at a couple of example scenarios:
1. Someone convinces a blind woman that he/she is her partner and has consensual sex with her. Is this rape? Did she only consent to sex with her partner, making the sex non-consensual? Or did she consent to sex with the person in the room with her, making this consensual sex?
2. A woman consents to sex, thinking that she is talking about vaginal intercourse. Her partner penetrates her anally. Did she consent to 'sex' in a general sense, so the specifics (anal vs. vagina) are not really important?
Number one is tricky. I don't know what the answer is there. My gut tells me that should be rape. But if I think about it, I think that's because the consent was never given to that person.
On the second one, I think most people are capable of telling the difference between whether they're having anal or regular intercourse, and, forgive me for going into details, but unless you're having exceptionally vigorous and violent anal sex, it's not like it's going to just "go in" unnoticed. There will at least be a brief period of, erm "engaging".
At that point, the recipient can just say "no". If they say "no", and the other person continues anyway, it's rape. Otherwise, I would think that consent is implied...*
* unless the perpetrator has threatened violence if the other person says no, obviously, in which case it's a whole different kettle of fish.
He ties her up and blindfolds her (maybe she's
into bondage). She consents to only be penetrated
by a sex toy. He lies to her, and penetrates her
with himself instead. She doesn't notice until
later. Consent or non-consent?
[1] i.e. she doesn't realize that there is no condom
She agrees to have sex only if he doesn't come. Unfortunately, he gets over-excited and comes anyway. She obviously doesn't notice until it actually happens.
In this scenario, he obviously has breached the initial conditions. Is that rape though?
In the Assange case, it's hard to say that he 'accidentally' didn't put on a condom after agreeing to put on a condom.