mokhtar@ubc-vision.UUCP (01/31/84)
Maybe it is a little too late for this, but late is better than never.
Several people expressed their anger and frustration with what the lawyer
on 60 minutes said about "mild rape". I didn't find what the lawyer said
very disgusting or outrageous for the following reasons:
There is no doubt that rape is very tragic and painful. No doubt that
what the rapist did was definitely wrong and he/she should be punished
for it but there must be a difference in the punishments of two rapists
one of whom cuts the victim "into pieces" and the other who does not
inflict any "physical damage" on the victim. One person on the same show
said, "This is not a black & white world but a world of several shades of
grey". Good people make mistakes too, in this case a horrible mistake.
They should pay for it but they should not become the targets of somebody's
anger. In my opinion, a raped person should not substitude pain with anger
and hatred. Those are the same qualities that drive the rapist to commit
that act. If you hate him/her, you will become like what you hate. Doesn't
sound easy. It is not, but with prolonged anger there is no healing, only
more hurting, of one's self and possibly others.
simon@psuvax.UUCP (02/01/84)
Sorry, but sometimes anger is justified. Maybe some Nazi camp guards at Auschwitz only killed a few thousand inmates instead of hundreds of thousands, and maybe Gandhi could forgive and love them. Most humans cannot. There is a point in that some crimes are especially horrible, and that some people make horrible mistakes. Still, punishment should to some extent fit the crime, not the intentions of the criminal. This principle is clearly present in civil law: if you break your neighbor's window, you pay for it, whether it was a "tragic mistake" (your daughter hit a hardball into it) or a premeditated action (your unauthorized form of protest against late parties). In the latter case, you may also be liable for punitive damages, and criminal action. js
mazur@inmet.UUCP (02/10/84)
#R:ubc-visi:-15800:inmet:10900043:000:1348
inmet!mazur Feb 8 18:42:00 1984
***** inmet:net.women / ubc-visi!mokhtar / 11:44 pm Jan 30, 1984
There is no doubt that rape is very tragic and painful. No doubt that
what the rapist did was definitely wrong and he/she should be punished
for it but there must be a difference in the punishments of two rapists
one of whom cuts the victim "into pieces" and the other who does not
inflict any "physical damage" on the victim.
----------
There is a difference between the two. In the case of a victim cut into
pieces, the rapist would probably be charged with assault and battery as
well as rape, and if he/she (using she reluctantly) were found guilty,
he/she would most likely be sentenced to a much longer prison term.
The other difference is that the first victim would have less trouble
convincing a judge and jury that he/she was raped. The second victim could
find himself/herself on trial, especially if he/she knew her attacker.
Questions like "What were you wearing, why were you there, why did you let
him/her bring you home..." implying that the victim some how could have
encouraged/allowed the attack.
Big question: can anbody on the net think of a court trial where a man
(and I don't mean child abuse) accused another man of raping him? What
were the results?
Beth Mazur
{ima,esquire,harpo}!inmet!mazur