laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/03/83)
Personally, I think that rape is assault. I would like it to not have a separate classification. this perpetuates the idea that sex is something either dirty or mysterious, or otherwise very different from the rest of life. But then i do not find the idea that somebody raped someone else any different than the idea that someone beat up somebody else, or otherwise attacked them. I have been told that I am strange in this respect -- I wonder if I am. One of the trouble with existing rape laws, is that it is difficult to decide when a rape has actually occurred. Over the years of reading a writing netnews about 5 people have written to me after I submitted something to net.singles with the same problem and the same proposed solution. They were shy male virgins who wanted to stop being shy male virgins. But they didn't know how to talk to women. (Or they thought that they didn't -- actually they were very good at it, but I had to tell them that). Only one of them is still on the net, and he still writes to me sometimes. They decided that they would try to talk to me, hundreds of miles away, where I couldn't hurt them, and if they could handle that they would work up to the attractive girl in their chemistry class... So I wrote to them. But it occurred to me at the time that had I been so inclined I could have driven to wherever they were and offered to take away the virginity. I bet that I would have been accepted every time. It occurred to me also that I'll bet there are a lot of men in my situation. This is a very scary situation. I doubt that any of my correspondants, had they gone home and talked to their parents and decided that they wanted their virginity back could get away with charging me with rape. I'm 5'4", after all -- it would be hard to conceive of me raping anyone. But suppose I was 6'5" and male... the thought makes me shudder. Which is why I think that if it is rape, I would like to see some bruises or the marks where the ropes were. "i was so frightened that I didn't do anything" doesn't sound very good to me. So I have a few questions. First of all, do you think that rape and assault should be considered separate offenses? if so why? And for you guys out there -- do you worry about getting charged with rape? If you do, what do you do about it? Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (12/04/83)
==========
So I have a few questions. First of all, do you think that rape
and assault should be considered separate offenses? if so why?
And for you guys out there -- do you worry about getting charged
with rape? If you do, what do you do about it?
Laura Creighton
==========
One possible reason for conisdering rape to be assault rather than
a "sexual" offense is that it seems to be about the only "sexual"
crime whose rate does not go down dramatically when pornography
is legalized. This suggests that the only sexual aspect to rape
is the fact that women are generally physically weak and rape is
a strong demonstration of male power over the victim.
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmtdave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (12/04/83)
Laura's point about treating rape as assault is a valid one, though
I don't quite agree with the rest of her argument.
The Canadian Criminal Code was amended about a year ago to get rid of
the definition of "rape" which required proving such things as penetration
(and the fact that the two were not married). The offenses now are
- sexual assault
and - aggravated sexual assault
Whether the victim is male or female is irrelevant to the charge.
Obviously, in light of the current discussion, the changes to the Code
have hardly succeeeded entirely in changing the public's approach to
rape to be one of assault. But the legislation now correctly treats
the crime as one of violence, not sexual passion.
Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davefischer@eosp1.UUCP (12/07/83)
Laura, I'm really having a hard time believing you mean the things you
said about rape. If you do, it reminds me of a famous rape case in England
a century or more ago where the defense attorney handed the victim a pen,
and challenged her to put it into an open ink bottle he was holding. He,
of course, moved the bottle every time she attempted to place the pen in
the bottle. He thereby "proved" that it was impossible to rape an unwilling
woman.
Very recently, in the town I live in, a woman was raped. She was walking
to her car when a man came up behind her, grabbed her by the throat, and
placed a large knife in her mouth. Would you like to tell me how much
resistance you would be willing to put up in a situation like this? Perhaps
she should have been more cautious about walking alone in dark parking lots,
but, given you were there, with the knife in YOUR mouth, would you struggle?
Or, imagine the knife replaced with a gun. More simply still, if you had a
choice between just being raped, and being raped and also having the s**t
beat out of you, which one would you choose? Getting beat up isn't very
pleasant, especially if you have reason to believe that your attacker might
get a little carried away and injure you permanently, or perhaps kill you.
If a rape victim perceives her life as being in danger, why does she HAVE to
struggle? Demanding bruises and rope marks to verify a charge of rape is
equivalent to saying that no one should be allowed to charge anyone else of
a crime unless they can prove that they exhausted every conceivable means of
preventing that crime. All the rapist would have to say is, "Well, she
didn't fight too hard, so I guess I figured she didn't really mind. I wouldn't
REALLY have killed her."
The average rape victim is weak and vulnerable. Women as old as 80 or 90
and children as young as 2 and 3 are raped. Just because YOU feel secure in
your ability to defend yourself does not give you the right to cast doubt on
all rapes where the victim did not.
Elizabeth Fischer
Exxon Office Systems
decvax!ittvax!eosp1!fischer
or allegra!eosp1!fischerlaura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/09/83)
Aha, but what i would *really* like to see are very, very, very tough rape and assault laws. But i do not think that you can get them while it is possible for the guy to be 'framed'. So you get really short sentences for such crimes. And you get people who believe that 'the rapist is not responsible for his actions and only a product of our strange society's preoccupation with sex'. I would like it if these people associated rape with violence and did not try to make ammends for the Puritanitism of their forefathers by letting rapists walk the streets. The disadvantage of having heavy penalties for rape is, of course, that the rapist may decide to kill his victim to prevent identification. And if you condone capital punishment then you had better be damn sure that you are executing a rapist, and not killing an innocent. The other end of this is to remember that the law does not protect you from rape or assault -- it only gives you something to do to offenders. (the arguments as to whether X is really 'deterred' by punishment Y can go on for years.) Given this understanding of the law, it is necessary to remember that people *will* get raped. Clearly rape is not a very nice thing -- but there are several questions which must be raised if you are going to reevaluate the rape (sexual assault) law. For one thing, it is considered to be a very bad thing even if the victim was only sexually assaulted, but not physically assaulted. Why? is it really all that terrible, or is it merely that people are conditioned to believe that it is terrible? if the problem is that society teaches women to believe that sex is more special than it really is, then should we expect our courts to uphold this belief? Maybe we should try to change that belief instead. If, on the other hand, the sex act *is* (for most people) something that special and wonderful, regardless of the media hype, then rape and assault should *not* be classified as the same offense, since the sex act is what is significant. (perhaps you can charge rapists who assault their victims with rape *and* with assault.) By the way -- around here if you pull a gun or knife or other dangerous weapon on someone you get charged with assault -- are the laws different in the US? The last problem is one of ethics. Does society have the obligation to protect those who will not try to protect themselves and others? Why or why not? Of course, there are loopholes in no matter what is decided -- ranging from kidney punches that show no marks (though blood in the urine may tell) to people who will not fight due to strong moral beliefs (as opposed to, say, fear). laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura