One arrangement that would make legalizing rape just fine would be having very good security almost everywhere. Maybe everyone has the option to carry a little personal security-bot in their pocket, and that bot is very effective in repelling all attacks on the person.
So rape is legal, but so is defending against it, and everyone is able to defend themselves unless they’ve opted out of it. And certainly some people would find “risky dating” exciting and nice. Perhaps even a majority of the population, once they’ve lived long enough in a world quite different from ours in it’s safety, luxuriousness and overflowing supply of nice guys. Rape might not feel like the current meaning of the word in such a society; they would have difficulty understanding our meaning of the word, and indeed would have no real use for such a concept. (And let us also separate non-consensual physical damage or severe pain from their concept of rape. One assumes these things would still be illegal.)
One arrangement that would make legalizing rape just fine would be having very good security almost everywhere. Maybe everyone has the option to carry a little personal security-bot in their pocket, and that bot is very effective in repelling all attacks on the person.
So rape is legal, but so is defending against it, and everyone is able to defend themselves unless they’ve opted out of it. And certainly some people would find “risky dating” exciting and nice. Perhaps even a majority of the population, once they’ve lived long enough in a world quite different from ours in it’s safety, luxuriousness and overflowing supply of nice guys. Rape might not feel like the current meaning of the word in such a society; they would have difficulty understanding our meaning of the word, and indeed would have no real use for such a concept. (And let us also separate non-consensual physical damage or severe pain from their concept of rape. One assumes these things would still be illegal.)