Protecting the Names of Rape Victims

Great Debates
1

There’s a concurrent GD thread about the responsibility of women in “public” rape cases to make themselves known and a thread in the Pit about radio host Tom Leykis naming Kobe Bryant’s accuser on the air but I wanted to be more general than either of those threads.

There is no question that rape is a grievous crime which carries an extreme emotional (and often, physical) impact for the victim which can be long-lasting and fairly devastating. That’s not really open for debate.

But as a rule, those who are victims of all manner of other grievous crimes which carry extreme emotional (and often, physical) impact for the victims which can be long-lasting and fairly devastating are not given the protection of anonymity by the press.

There is a school of thought that because of the sexual component of rape, it is somehow special class of crime which carries a special stigma which everyone should attempt to shield the victim from as long and as fiercely as possible.

There’s also the feeling that the victim of a rape would be too traumatized should she face retribution from those in the community who disbelieved her charge. Again, rape is elevated as a “special class” here and the trauma of victims of other crimes if they face retribution is not seen as equally compelling.

There is an argument that the motivation behind this “special class” is the idea that rape victims are shattered women in need of protection. Why that would motivate protection of rape victims but not, say, attempted murder victims (even those who have been raped, if her other injuries are deemed “more serious”) returns us to the idea that even though rape is about violence, not sex, the sexual component makes it different.

But therein is the question – is rape really a more serious offense against a person than being shot and left paralyzed? Is there some subjective measure of trauma that ranks rape higher than having one’s home firebombed or being the victim of an ethnically-motivated attack and beating?

If the victims in cases such as those are not entitled to the opportunity to, as Trisha Meili (aka the Central Park Jogger) put it “heal and recover out of the spotlight” why are rape victims?

It’s a hard road for everyone, coming back from a crime and finding ways to reestablish normalcy. What justifies the press “doing the courtesy” of making it harder for some than for others?

Your thoughts…

2

Simple. Rape is torture accomplished by means of sexual assault. Sexual matters are fairly intimate. The body is invaded. Also, mugging victims and other crime victims simply don’t get blamed for what happens to them. When was the last time you saw this happen during a mugging trial:
“What were you wearing? A thousand dollar suit? Well, you were trying to look rich, weren’t you? Case dismissed.”

In rape cases, unlike other cases, the trauma is not just inflicted by the attacker. It’s inflicted by family, friends, experts, everyone.

3

There are other forms of torture, most of which result in far great physical and psychological damage, in the long run, than rape. Victims of those sorts of crimes don’t get shielded unless, again, there’s a sexual component which isn’t overshadowed by the intensity of the other injuries that they sustain.

As for blaming the victim, there are always “what were you doing there?” “why didn’t you run/just give him the purse/scream?” questions asked, especially when people are thought to have done things that exacerbated the effects of the crime.

I’m not going to touch the idea that family, friends and experts inflict trauma on a rape victim and that’s a reason to keep their names out of the media. :rolleyes: Family and friends will know anyway. Experts, presuming that you meant those presented in a trial, will know anyway. Totally not germane to the point at hand.