We need to talk about rape

Debuk's Feminist Language blog post this week is something I could have placed in any number of topics here -- it applies to "Misogynistic violence on the rise" and to "discrimination against women, global examples" and to "representation of women in the media". But I thought it might deserve its own topic because she's right, the word "rape" is actively avoided in the media in favor of more euphemistic phrases, and I thought surely in a group dedicated to Feminist thought, we could bear a topic dedicated to rape -- the word and the act.

https://debuk.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/we-need-to-talk-about-rape/

But the number of reported rapes that disappear into the void—that get ‘no-crimed’, reclassified, put on the back burner, or abruptly dropped without charge—suggests a deeper and more systemic problem. As EVAW, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said last month, the chance that a rapist will be convicted is now so small, rape is ‘effectively being decriminalised’.

Language can also make rape disappear. When I called this post ‘we need to talk about rape’, what I meant was that we need to talk about the word ‘rape’: how it’s used, when it’s avoided, and how that both reflects and contributes to a culture of impunity and injustice.

On the upside, thanks to the post I am now following Jane Gilmore's "Fixed It" project. It's fantastic.

On the downside, the word "himpathy" has now entered my vocabulary, and I could have done without that.

It's a dismal state of affairs. You may have seen today the news item about Weinstein in a comedy club getting confronted by one of the performers (herself a rape survivor), only for the audience--men most audibly--to yell at her to shut up etc. She and another woman performer who came to her defense were kicked out and a few other women left too. I haven't seen anywhere that any men left; moreover, as the show continued, a male comic praised Weinstein for producing that great movie, "Good Will Hunting".

I've seen Gilmore's project but it ought to be noted the idea is not original with her--there's a black woman artist who started "editing" the New York Times, showing the bias of their story framing. (Not sure but I think it was a poster in the "White Privilege" group who linked to that first.)

Aha, this, her name is Alexandra Bell, and her "Counternarratives" date from 2016:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/arts/design/artist-alexandra-bell-dissects-th...

If the paywall is a bother, try:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-alexandra-bell-is-disrupting-...

>2 LolaWalser: I didn't know about Bell. Thanks for that!

>1 southernbooklady: >2 LolaWalser: Thanks for this, both of you. I agree wholeheartedly with your point, southernbooklady. One thing that's bothered me for ages is using the word "molestation" instead of "rape." It's often done in cases where children are involved and it obscures the crimes of the adults. This whole culture is making me sick right now.

There's also "Unfounded", Robyn Doolittle's twenty-month investigation for The Globe and Mail into how police investigate women's reports of sexual assault.

Doolittle's work resulted in much public discussion across Canada. Some positive change in procedures may also have come about, perhaps.

Wow, this is really powerful work. Debuk has a way of articulating the things I don't know how to articulate but have observed.

I hate that this gives people space to make claims about "legitimate rape" and "real rape" because sexual assault isn't rape and molestation isn't rape so is it really rape if it isn't a stranger in a dark alley?

"This happened" Woman maintains she was raped even after police arrested her for making a false claim.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/10/29/this-happened-grad-student-refu...

The news article infuriates me from start to end.

So I suppose because I did a bit of internet searching after reading debuk's essay on how the word rape is (not) used in the media, the algorithms-that-be have decided I'm interested in seeing more of the same, and thus news articles about rape are floating to the top of all my search feeds. Here's this morning's:

Five men acquitted of rape because unconscious teenage victim didn't fight back

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/europe/barcelona-rape-sexual-assault-intl/index.h...

A court in Barcelona cleared five men of sexual assault charges on Thursday after saying the crime did not fit the legal definition of rape because the unconscious teenage victim didn't fight back.

Under Spanish law, a sexual attack can only be classified as an assault or rape if the perpetrator uses violence or intimidation. Because the 14-year-old victim was unconscious, the five were convicted of a lesser charge of sexual abuse.

So there is a legal system where "rape" has nothing to do with consent at all.

Ah, that story... it's just one continuous heartbreak for YEARS now. There were several times when it looked like the public outrage it and similar have incited may help to get justice done (I can't find all the previous links, it seems this was the first mention of the verdict, now sustained--https://www.librarything.com/topic/256572#6460448--I know there were other), and then to see this... it's compounding everything those pigs did times million.

Five men gang-raped a 14-year-old. There were other men on the scene, none of whom tried to help her. It's possible more than five assaulted her, charges were dropped in several cases for murky reasons. One man who escaped prosecution was the individual who masturbated to the gang rape--he was not accused of anything.

I hope every single pig from that night dies set on fire alive. Those who raped her, those who looked away, and the bastard jerking off to the scene.

Let's look at the insanity of the law.

https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/10/31/inenglish/1572525418_791189.html

The public prosecutor had called for the defendants to be charged for the more serious crime of sexual assault, but the court ruled that the victim was in an “unconscious state,” meaning that the men did not need to use violence and intimidation against her – which is a prerequisite for a rape charge under Spanish law.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/31/men-accused-of-raping-girl-in-span...

Giving evidence in July, the Manresa victim said one of the accused was a friend with whom she had had sexual relations a week earlier and whom she trusted. She said he was the one who led her to the shack where he raped her and then invited his friends to do likewise, telling them they each had 15 minutes.

Because she was intoxicated ("unconscious"), they ruled she couldn't know what she did or didn't do. What relevance this supposition has in the minds of anyone except the pigs looking to give other pigs a break, and what logic even those follow, I can't tell. In any case:

However, the court ruled the men “were able to carry out these sexual acts without resorting to violence or intimidation” because the victim was “in an unconscious state” from drugs and alcohol “and didn’t know what she was or wasn’t doing”.

So, "carrying out those sexual acts"--that is rape, serial rape by mulitple men at that--is not deemed a violence in itself. Resorting to rape is not "resorting to violence". Being five men fucking an intoxicated 14 year old one after another is not intimidating, and is not violent.

Because she was "unconscious", they say, it was unnecessary to use "violence or intimidation". Do you see this jump from her state to their choice of actions? There's a different way to express this: Because she was unconscious, she couldn't fight back. Because she was unconscious, she couldn't protest. Because she couldn't fight back and protest, they raped her without employing additional force. And because they raped her without needing to employ additional force, and rape itself is not a violence, not intimidation, not brutal, they were given lighter sentences (or none at all.)

This is a legit argument in Spain, in Catalonia, in Barcelona, in the 21st century. When it's no argument at all, nothing remotely logical, rational, arguable, but pure insane misogyny.

And not only there do they have laws like that one.

In France there was some commotion (I posted about that) when it finally started dawning on some that it may be, you know, a bit mad that rapes of children are by law not treated as other rapes, that is, not seen as rape at all. Because for some reason rape isn't tied to the act but the status of the victim. So minors can be "abused" but not "raped"--and sexual crimes against minors thus result in lesser convictions. So precisely those most vulnerable and most often the target of sexual assault, exploitation and statutory rape, girls, are those least protected.

So, yes. What does even talking about rape mean when rape is a joke, woman's consent irrelevant--or woman's opinion on anything for that matter, as soon as it diverges from whatever suits some dickhead.

The convictions in a previous case were changed to rape by a higher court, and I assume these will be, too. But it is high time the Spanish legislature changes the wording of the law.

Also, the sentences are between 10 and 12 years (instead of 15 and 20). So these men will serve longer time in prison than most rapists in many other countries.

>10 MarthaJeanne:

True, and how sad is that. However, I'm not sure we can be sure they'll actually serve the full sentences.

Here in Austria a man just got a four year sentence for raping his stepdaughter 'for years'. She is now 15.

Ugh. I better not think to cases I know of... well, if you consider a judge in enlightened Canada asked a rape victim just a few years ago why she couldn't have kept her knees together... best not to picture what goes on elsewhere.

Well, this one thing, this one thing that still makes my blood boil ten years later--a shit who tried to rape a woman but only managed to ram his hand into her before her screaming drew others--got a couple of months in jail only because she had been a virgin. Let's not even go into the details of how that was determined. So, the only value conferred on her, her person, bodily integrity, right to exist unmolested--was that assigned to "virginity". And his defence, the winning argument the judge actually quoted in explaining the sentence? He had not had sex in two years.

Is it any wonder only a vanishing minority of cases even get reported...

Another old example: Back in the 90's, in a Compuserve forum, we were discussing AIDS. Big issue back then, because it was a death sentence. We didn't have any effective way of treating it. One man came on to say that it was sent by God to destroy all those awful homos. Turns out, he had been raped as a young boy and blamed all gays. People tried to differentiate between pedophiles and homosexuals, but he wasn't having any. I finally asked whether, because I had been the victim of attempted rape, I should hate and condemn all heterosexual males.

'No. That's different. That's what girls are for.'

>14 MarthaJeanne: That's what girls are for.

The justification of patriarchy, in a nutshell.

When judges don’t know the meaning of rape, there is little hope of justice (Guardian)

Kenya university's rape memo sparks anger (BBC)

A top Kenyan university has apologised after blaming "reckless" female students for becoming victims of rape...

"If men just stopped raping us, rape will stop."

What I see is so many men accused of sexual assault 'back then' saying it didn't happen. They don't remember doing anything like that. The woman's life was turned upside down, but it was such a nothing to them that they can honestly say that they don't remember doing it.