Torrence wrote:
If I am understanding you correctly, you are arguing that somehow rape isn't so bad if the woman manages to make it out of the ordeal alive. I cannot believe that even you could say something so absolutely insulting and disgusting.
You do not understand me correctly. Could be I'm not communicating clearly enough. Don't know. You're correct though, that would be insulting and disgusting. It's also not remotely close to what I'm trying to say.
Quote:
So if I am forced to the ground, penetrated viciously and I fail to fight back after the attacker I can't even see says "make one sound and you'll die", it's not really much of a crime at all. After all, I could have chosen to die instead of just being raped, right?
No. It's a serious crime. But even serious crimes often can't result in conviction unless there is a degree of evidence sufficient to prove both that a crime occurred *and* that the defendant committed it. This is how our legal system works. My point is that we should be aware of this limitation when considering an issue like this and not go off into the weeds talking about hypotheticals that don't apply. In the case you describe, I'm assuming being "penetrated viciously" resulted in sufficient damage to prove that non-consensual sex had occurred. So it's not relevant to the discussion at hand.
What is relevant are cases where a woman goes to a club, meets some guy, has drinks with him, dances with him, makes out with him, gets in a cab with him, goes to his place, then realizes she really doesn't want to have sex with him but is afraid that if she denies him, he might become physically violent. Perhaps he does threaten her. Maybe he just implies it. Maybe he just acts crazy and she's scared now that she's alone with him. Who knows? The point being that if at that point she makes a decision to give in to having sex with him in order to avoid the potential of violence, she may very well be making the correct decision. Maybe he would have beat her. Maybe he would panic and kill her afterwords in order to avoid criminal charges for rape. Or maybe he's just playing a fine line between intimidation and threat in the hopes that she'll give him what he wants without him actually having to commit a crime. There's no way to know. Hell, the woman in that situation can't know for sure either, right? But regardless of what would have happened or what might have happened, at that moment, if she chooses to give in to him without allowing the situation to escalate to violence, it's going to be incredibly hard for her to prove that she was raped.
I'm not at all making a judgment about that decision. I'm simply pointing out the likely legal reality involved. If there's no evidence of physical coercion or struggle, and the person was someone she knew or willingly went off with at some point, the odds of getting a conviction are incredibly low. Which is why I take issue with the idea that women should just get over their sexual hangups in situations like that. Just bear it and move on, I guess. And why I also take issue with the whole "rape is rape" argument as well. In both cases, I think you end out increasing the number of instances of this form of rape. You'll end out with a lot more women focusing on what to do *after* something like that happens rather than focusing on the choices made that lead up to it.
That's not to say that such things are always avoidable, but it really does seem like young women are being taught to abrogate their responsibilities by assuming that the law will somehow protect them after the fact. I think that's a terrible approach and is more harmful than helpful.