New Zealand’s rape law and subsequent sentencing guidelines treat women who rape men more leniently than men who rape women.

Section 128 of the Crimes Act defines rape and unlawful sexual connections as follows:

(2) Person A rapes person B if person A has sexual connection with person B, effected by the penetration of person B’s genitalia by person A’s penis,— (a) without person B’s consent to the connection; and

(b) without believing on reasonable grounds that person B consents to the connection. (3) Person A has unlawful sexual connection with person B if person A has sexual connection with person B— (a) without person B’s consent to the connection; and

(b) without believing on reasonable grounds that person B consents to the connection

Both rape and unlawful sexual connection have a maximum 20 year sentence.

On the surface, it looks like both men and women are treated equally, but the sentencing guidelines released by the Court of Appeal make a clear distinction between rape by penetration and other forms of sexual assault.

The bands for sexual violation where the lead offence is rape, penile penetration of the mouth or anus or violation involving objects (the rape bands) Rape band one: 6-8 years

Rape band two: 7-13 years

Rape band three: 12-18 years

Rape band four: 16-20 years The bands for other violation where unlawful sexual connection is the lead offence (the USC bands) USC band one: 2-5 years

USC band two: 4-10 years

USC band three: 9-18 years

The bands are delineated by the severity of the assault and an assessment of culpability of the offender.

Rape band one is the least severe forms of rape (that’s not to say rape is not a severe crime) and maps closely to USC band one. Similarly, band two maps across the categories in terms of severity. Rape bands three and four map to USC band three.

So in the scenario where a rape/sexual assault falls into band one, a man raping a woman should always get a longer sentence than a woman forcing a man to penetrate. For more severe crimes, the bands overlap somewhat but sentencing guidelines for a woman forcing a man to penetrate always recommend a range of shorter sentences compared to the equivalent with the genders reversed.

The sentencing guidelines list a number of historical cases in each band to clarify to a sentencing judge the intent of the Court, however, there are no examples of female offenders and male victims. This leaves room for judges to interpret the guidelines rather freely and inconsistently even though the guidelines purpose is to eliminate inconsistency in sentencing.