Marley23, did you read the rest of my post?
I neither stated nor implied that a person who has been raped (it can happen to men too, don’t forget) would be better off dead. I wrote that, like I can envision myself being friends with someone who has committed an action that is legally considered murder, while I cannot conceive of the same thing in the case of rape. Killing is sometimes justified; rape never is.
Yes. Several other people made similar points to the part I quoted, though, so I wasn’t responding to you alone.
I said that’s the implication of the idea that rape is worse than murder, not that you in particular implied it in your post. I’m not sure offhand if you read the Pit thread that inspired this one, but I felt there were several posts there that made the same implication, including one that stated specifically that the life of a 13-year-old rape victim was ruined.
In the first place, I would argue that the statement “rape is worse than murder” does not necessarily imply one thing. The statement is vague and can be taken in several possible ways. For instance:
[ol]
[li]Being raped is more destructive to the victim than murder is.[/li][li]Committing a rape is a greater sin in the eyes of God/the gods than murder is.[/li][li]Committing rape should be punished more severely by human laws than murder should be.[/li][li]I find rape so offensive personally that I would rather be in the company of a murderer than a rapist.[/li][li]Murder is sometimes justified; rape never is.[/li][/ol]
And that’s just off the top of my head.
As the OP is ambiguous, I chose to respond in such a fashion that I clearly meant the latter two interpretations. If you wish to contest sense 1, you can, but you ought not to do so while quoting me and only me–and not even quoting my entire post—as doing so gives the impression that I wrote in support of that thesis.
And I read and posted in the thread which spawned this one.
Anyway,
I actually know a person who committed a mercy killing; she upped a morphine drip for a family member who was terminally ill and in horrible pain. That person is technically a murderer, but not, by my lights, morally so. She acted out of love; she acted properly; she is morally superior to rapists.
That’s a good point, and I did focus on one particular interpretation, which is the first one you listed.
I don’t think it does, given that your post is immediately viewable here. But anyway:
I wouldn’t consider that person a murderer either.
The law does, though. As “murder” is a a legal construct, you can see why I feel it is sometimes justified.
In fact, I’d say that there are other cases where murder is justified, or at least understandable. Re: the other thread, my biggest problem with the way the aggrieved mother did what she did is the irresponsible and dangerous-to-the-general-public way she did it, and the fact that the rapist scum was pretty much tortured to death. If I were on the jury deciding her case, and she had shot him in the back of the head in a private place so that no one else was endangered, I’d be inclined to say, “Yeah…what you did was very bad. You are no longer allowed to watch television.”
Well, I don’t consider “mercy killing” or “assisted suicide” to be “murder”, though I’m fully aware the law does. If someone asks you to end or assist in ending their life, it’s not the same as taking someone out without their OK.
True. My error was that I didn’t think of that as a possible kind of murder included by the OP. I think he was going for a more narrow view like the one I described but that doesn’t mean everybody else meant the same thing.
Understandable and justified are very different ideas and I think it’s a bad idea to use them interchangeably. An ex-girlfriend of mine was raped years before I met her, and for a long time I thought every day about how I’d have him killed if I could. I think just about anyone would find that understandable. But justified? Even I’d have a hard time saying so.
But by your objection, it sounds like you *are *telling people what to feel - you’re telling them they’re *not *ruined by this one act. I’m saying they might be or they might not be. The only person who can say is them.
Admittedly, I could parse your objection differently, with the stress on “every”, and then I think we totally agree. It’s just not clear to me which way you meant it from your writing.
Murders is the worst of crimes. When you take someone’s life from them you take away all the possibilities, you take away what they would have become. There is no comparable crime.
The ability of humans to persevere is remarkable, and people come back from virtually everything other than death. When you take a human life you are destroying that person, everything that they are or will ever be is being snuffed out.
Since some have said that my OP was a bit ambiguous, I’ll try to clarify. It seems to me that there’s a lot more vitriol on these boards towards a person who rapes or molests a 13-year-old girl than one who kills a 13-year-old girl. Why? You won’t really see any (or as many) RO pits involving murder as you would sexual misconduct.
Perhaps not for the reason you think. I’ve started a couple of RO threads about rapists I unfortunately lived in proximity too. But if I see a case about a child being murdered, I am unlikely to start a thread or open one because I just can’t bear to think about it. I was mostly silent in the threads about that little girl whose mother seems to have killed her and then spent a month partying before bothering to report her for just that reason; it was too awful to think about.
For example, maybe the rapist in the OP could have been rehabilitated. You might assume he couldn’t be, but you cannot be certain.
There is no possible recovery from murder.
There is possible recovery from rape.
Murder is worse.
Life is more precious and sacred than one’s sexuality, in a nutshell. Forcing someone into a sex act against their will is of course heinous and despicable. Murder is even worse: it’s forcing someone to not merely give up their sexuality against their will, it’s forcing them to give up their life.
I think this is because Americans are really, really, really hung up about sex. Horrific graphic violence in a movie, no problem; touching, beautiful, graphic, sex = OH MY GOD won’t SOMEONE PLEASE think of the CHILDREN!
Murder’s much better for the victim. Once he’s dead, he’s no longer suffering. Its irrelevent to say that the victim may come out better for the experience had he lived. Once death is there, there’s no more suffering and you certainly cant miss the life that you dont have
Given that, I would say that a murder is a worst crime, but a rape victim suffers more than a murder victim over the long term
To many others, though, the sexuality of an innocent is more precious and sacred than the life of someone who corrupted the sexuality of an innocent.
For a lot of people, it seems to have more to do with very bad things happening to an innocent person vs guilty person, than it has to do with the severity of the act itself.
I would feel bad for an innocent person being burned to death, but I’m not going to waste my emotions for a rapist who was burned to death. I have more sympathy for the mother than the rapist in this case - he pressed her emotional buttons and intentionally provoked her rage. I’m not excusing what she did…but I am sympathetic to her situation.
They’re not ruined. Whether they feel that way about it or not is another matter.
Though I’ve opined upthread that I could befriend a murderer but not a rapist, I must disagree. If faced with the improbable choice of someone I loved being raped OR murdered, I’d much rather they be raped, because there is the possibility of recovery and healing. The notion that a woman is forever ruined by rape fraught with sexist and paternalistic assumptions.
Another way to look at it as that the person might believe that, but she or he is wrong. Healing is possible if the person is alive, and such statements that a rape victim is ‘ruined’ make such healing more difficult to achieve.
Yeah, I agree. There was a creepy thread a while back in Cafe Society asking about instances where rape was justified, and I really couldn’t think of any, even fictional, examples where it was. But people were…it was really odd.
And as Skald points out, I couldn’t stay friends with a rapist. I could possibly stay friends with a murderer (it would depend) but I just can’t think of a reason why you’d have to rape someone.
Interesting that everyone is assuming the rapist is male and victim is female. That’s true most of the time, but not all of the time.
Anyway, IANARV (I Am Not A Rape Victim), but Skald’s point of view here makes sense to me.
Another point: we’re all making out rape to be an explicitly black and white issue, with obvious and clear guilt, and so on. How often is this really the case? Is it not true that many rapes are difficult to prove because the circumstances are murky? Is it not true that a number of rape cases in recent years have been overturned due to DNA evidence?
Murdering an accused (even convicted) rapist means that if it turns out later you had the wrong perp, it’s far, far too late.
I more convinced than ever that capital punishment and enlightened society are mutually exclusive. Vigilantism is horrible for society, and should not be left out of this discussion.