I'm trying not to roll my eyes here, but go on...jab (imported) wrote: Sun Sep 04, 2005 2:23 am The crime of "rape" is a power game, not a sexual one. It's called, "look what I can make you put up with, and if you resist, I'll make it far, far worse." It is brutalizing on about every level, and it would be easier to resist, ignore, or recover from, if it were solely a sexual act.
Now, I have a question for you.jab (imported) wrote: Sun Sep 04, 2005 2:23 am Lobbing off his personals doesn't take away his ability to brutalize you in this game of power. It might change the strategy and tools available (ahem) but not the risk.
I
if it's all about
" and "if you resist I'll make it far, far worse" then consider this situation. A man, 40 years of age, happens to find a woman of age 26 attractive. She likes him as a friend, however she does not reciprocate his sexual desire and feels uncomfortable about the age gap, probably wisely so. Nevertheless he feels upset and conflicted because of his desire for sex. So one day he manages to convince her to come over to his house. There after a delicious dinner and more than a few glasses of fine wine, he and her are sitting on the couch, and he starts massaging her shoulders. You can probably fill in the rest of the story from here.
Are you saying that isn't rape? Because it wasn't ever a power game, just the need for sexual gratification, and the conflict of age difference. He never threatened her if she resisted, and he did not desire to gloat about what he could make her put up with. He just wanted to get laid. And yet in a court of law, he has just committed rape. And in fact, I think many cases of rape, especially outside of incest, would be very similar to this story I have described above. The story you no doubt are thinking of, with the hulking monster dragging the screaming woman into a dark alleyway and having his way with her, is exceedingly rare.
My claim is that abuse and sex can be completely separated. If someone drags you off and rapes you, they should be treated as a despicable criminal for the violence, the brutality, the cruelty and the psychological threats. Whether or not they went and found some creative way to have sex during this crime is not a factor. It's not about sex. That's why it doesn't work to paint things in black and white: in man and monster, in rapist and human being. I worry whenever we find ourselves thinking of someone as inferior or somehow unworthy of being considered a person.
It's not that I really care about the rapist's feelings or junk like that. It's that I worry about the policemen, and the fellow criminals, and I worry about you, because every time you condemn someone beyond forgiveness, you lose a little bit of that elasticity in your mind. You lose the ability to distinguish between being rude, and committing brutal crimes. Being rude would be my story as above; she fully has the right to treat him as a detestable, even comtemptable individual for screwing with her like that. Committing brutal crimes would be like a friend of mine whose cousin threatened her with exposure and starvation as a very young girl if she didn't service him and his cronies, most of the neighbor's boys, ganging up on her, beating her up and exposing how her parents and her community didn't care whether she was alive or dead. Who cares if they had sex with her, that community should be firebombed for allowing something like that to happen!
The problem is, if you think of both as rape, then you'll treat my fictional 40 year old man with the same regard as my friend's monster of a cousin. And that's what's wrong with this picture.