The Truth About Rape

Great Debates
81

I think I’ve said precisely that, by reference to my derogation of Proudhon and Mao (as well as the “rape isn’t related to sex” crowd). I don’t think slogans or murals or mass ralillies should form the basis for serious policy debates or meting out of criminological benefits and burdens, no. Stalin did think so. That’s sort of my problem. Essentially, you and I agree that the self-styled (and actually-existent, and far from fringe) women’s advocates who insist upon an “all rape is unrelated to sex” or “all unwelcome sexual advances are a form of rape” policy statement are arguing for criminology (or police policy, or disciplinary policy, or psychiatric policy) by slogan, not fact. I disagree with this policy. You may not.

**And if you interpret “Rape is about violence” to mean this :

quote:

scientists have examined 800 rapists under a bell jar and determined conclusively that they were infected with the violence gene and had no interest in sex.

, then you are reading things into the statement that simply aren’t there.The original statement mentioned no studies, didn’t say the rapists had no interest in sex, and doesn’t even imply that the desire to do violence (or exert power) is on a conscious level or completely separate from sexual desire. **
As noted “rape is about violence” or “rape is not a form of sex” or “all unwanted sexual advances are a form of rape” are either question-begging and/or logically equivocative (that is, relying upon a sub silentio redefinition of one of the terms). “A is [is not] B” is a sweeping statement, logically. Basically, it means “A shares all properties [does not share any properties] with B.” Because rape does not share all characteristics with violence, and does share some characteristics with sex, this dogmatic approach seems pretty clearly incorrect/incomplete. When someone chooses the inaccurate shorthand slogan over the accurate (albeit facially argumentative) statement of their true proposition (“I think rape, including “date rape,” should be punished a lot more like battery/attempted murder”), it’s fair to assume their motive may include hiding the ball and trying to have accepted as fact what is really argument. Does this ball-hiding happen? Of course it does, and by people in power over (and with disciplinary authority as to) potential “offenders”:

“Myth: Rape is an impulsive act of sexual passion.
Fact: Anger, not sexual passion, is the primary motivation for men who rape. Rapists use sex as a weapon of intimidation, control, and humiliation.”
""http://www.umich.edu/~handbook/violence/rapemyths.html

Shockingly, the U. Michigan cite for this “fact” got lost in the shuffle; which presumably does not halt them from punitively sanctioning student offenders motivated by such “factual” non-sexual “anger.” It’s disingenuous to deny that the substitution of inaccurate slogans for the actual operative argumentative statements being advanced, as here, fosters, and is likely indifferent to the fostering of, confusion about the fact vs. opinion nature of those slogans.

Good luck.

82

Well, if there anyone who is arguing for policy by slogan alone, I would disagree with that argument . But I haven’t seen it , and I don’t believe it’s common. Have you seen policies changed by the simple chanting of a slogan, with no books, articles,editorials, speeches, meetings, etc? Not that you haven’t read the books, heard the speeches or attended the meetings, but where you know for a fact that they don’t exist? The rallies with slogans on signs may be most visible, but that doesn’t mean that’s all there is.No one here who has disagreed with you has merely repeated the mantra over and over.

See definition of violence in my prior post. Which characteristics
does rape not share? And to say that because rape shares some characteristics with sex, (in addition to those it shares with violence) it can’t be violence is to say that because a shooting/robbery shares characteristics with simple stealing, it can’t be violence.

83

So if I say that “fems” believe X, you ask “Cite?”

I produce a cite.

You say, “Oh, no, those are EXTREMIST fems!”

“Who are the real fems, then, so I may quote from their works to prove my point?”

“There is no person or organization that reliably speaks for feminism.”

I think this is the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. No matter who I quote, you dismiss them as extremist, yet you continue to deny that feminists advance the points I raise. What sort of evidence would you accept to prove my point then?

84

Cole, I think our point is, you said “ALL FEMS SAY THIS”. You have seen examples of at least TWO ‘fems’ (me and Lamia) who do not…so your assertion that ALL FEMS think RAPE IS ONLY VIOLENCE is wrong.

Get it?

85

Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t date men and I’m not going to beat you even if you beg for it.

Actually, you haven’t quoted anyone. You’ve provided the name of a single book that you claim makes one (out of three) of the statements you attribute to all “fems” in your OP, incidentally the point which I found least worthy of discussion. I don’t think there can be any doubt that an abusive or negligent father can have a negative impact on a child’s development, and if that is what the book you are refering to said then you are a fool to argue with it. If you’d like me to believe that the author instead said something more farfetched like “Every prostitute on earth came from a home with a bad father” or “The problems of all women are the fault of bad fathers” then I will have to see a real quote. Then I can dismiss the author.

I doubt I’ll have to do that, though, since a quick search at the Barnes & Noble website reveals that Julie Hilden’s The Bad Daughter is not a feminist or sociological text at all but a memoir. It is not even a memoir in which the author blames her own personal problems on a bad father. It is about how she was affected by her relationship with her abusive, alcoholic mother, how she was a “bad daughter” for refusing to help care for her mother when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, and how her relationship with her mother made it difficult for her to have successful relationships with other people, including boyfriends.

I think you have just won the SDMB prize for worst cite ever. What did you do, just pick a book with a title that sounded like it might support your bogus claim?

It doesn’t matter what kind of evidence you come up with (although something not completely invented would be nice), because your argument is unsound. Claims that consist of inventing extreme positions and attributing them to a huge, diverse group of people, or even claims that consist of taking the beliefs of a single member or small sample of members of that group and attributing them to the entire group, are illogical. While you were looking up the “No True Scotsman” fallacy maybe you should have stopped to read about the argumentum ad verecundiam and the fallacy of the unrepresentative sample.

86

Three “fems”, jar.

87

God, yer such a total fem

88

At least 4.
& still counting.

89

And I may point out that none of us (as far as I know are EXTREMISTS), except when it comes to cookies…then I’m out of control

90

FWIW, I didn’t take the OP’s message to mean, “Every feminist, without exception, believes as follows…” but rather “The traditional feminist rhetoric is as follows…”

Also FWIW, I think there’s a point here that’s gone unanswered. As loath as I am to align myself with the OP’s less-than-stellar logic, I do think it’s fair to say that:

  1. The idea that rape is never about sex, but rather always about violence, power, and control, is an oft-repeated statement. It is incorporated in numerous handbooks, factsheets, and commentary. Is anyone denying this?

  2. This idea is at best a gross oversimplification, and at worst an actual hindrance to the formation of sound public policy.

It is of no interest whether feminists, liberals, or, for that matter, Whigs, were responsible for any part of this. What is of interest, at least to my way of thinking, is that we not form public policy based on either slogans or the inaccurate concepts we may hold as a result of those slogans.

What specific public policy changes might come about?

I’d advocate taking a closer look at the various Rape Shield laws. In a nutshell, these laws make a rape victim’s past sexual history absolutely irrelevant evidence at any trial. For the most part, this is appropriate, and serves to prevent the defense from painting the victim as an unchaste woman, and allowing the jury to infer that she must have asked for it.

There are several instances in which the effect of the Rape Shield laws goes too far.

For example, when the victim is young, a jury may infer that the acts described must have been done by the accused - after all, how would a child of tender years know how to describe the male anatomy and physical results of a sexual encounter, but for experiencing it at the hands of the accused?

If the child did have another opportunity to acquire that knowledge, the defense should be permitted to place that in evidence to rebut the inference. In general, this is not permitted.

This is one example only of a public policy that has evidently arisen from the “Rape Is Never About Sex” mindset, and deserves a look divorced from that mindset.

  • Rick
91

I think our point is a lot of the women posting to this thread AGREE that “Rape is never about sex mindset” is ridiculous.

And the OP ASKED for examples of moderate feminists, so four of us came forward, at his behest.

J

92

I just searched the phrase “rape is never about sex” through Google, and turned up only 17 links. The majority of those links were in the context of sites that were challenging what they claimed to be the feminist belief that “rape is never about sex”. Two were in the context of fan discussions about the rape of characters on fictional television shows. A few rape factsheets and articles about rape did turn up, although at least one of those seemed to be using the phrase in reference to the victim. From her perspective she has not had sex, but been the victim of a violent crime.

A search on “rape is not about sex” (a phrase that may seem identical in meaning but which I think carries a different connotation, something I will address below) turned up 401 hits, but the breakdown was about the same. This appears to be a position attributed to feminists far more often than it is actually expressed by feminists, or anyone else for that matter.

Even when the actual phrase “rape is not about sex” is used by feminists or advocates for rape victims, it seems clear that it means “sex is not the sole or primary motive for rape” not “no fleeting thought of sex ever so much as enters the rapists mind”. For instance, this quotes from http://www.rapecrisis.co.uk/myths_facts.htm:

Now, it would be possible to interpret these statements to mean that no rapist ever experienced any sexual desire for his victim or derived any amount of sexual satisfaction from his crime, but it seems obvious to me that what is really meant is simply that sexual desire is neither the only nor the chief motivation for rape. Indeed, a bit further down the same page there is another quote that phrases this in a way that is less likely to be mistinterpreted:

(Emphasis mine.)

I would never claim that sexual desire never has anything at all to do with any rape. I don’t believe I have ever encountered or even heard of anyone who would. But I think it is fair to say “rape is not about sex” if this is understood to mean “rape is not primarily motivated by sexual desire”. I don’t think that is too farfetched a reading of the phrase.

I don’t think anyone should make the claim “rape is never about sex” as this does seem to mean “not even the slightest hint of sexual desire or frustration is ever experienced by the rapist at all”, but as best as I can tell almost no one ever makes that specific claim anyway.

93

Is this really an inference that the jury is likely to make? Maybe it’s just me, but I think the most likely inference from that information alone is that the child experienced it at the hands of someone, just like if I saw photos of a bloody and bruised assault victim, I would infer that that person indeed been beaten but not that the accused did it. It would take more to convince me that it was the accused who did it . If there was enough to convince me that the accused was the guilty party, whether the victim gained her knowledge at his hands or acquired it previously wouldn’t matter.

94

At a minimum, the presence of the “Rape Is Not/Never About Sex” sloganeering in the air did not hurt the passage of rape shield laws; these laws are based on the explicit notion/“findings” that evidence about the alleged victim’s past sexual conduct is “irrelevant.” Because relevant means 'having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence more probable or less probable [emph. supplied]," classifying or arguing that an entire category of facts are presumptively irrelevant, and thus can’t be even adverted to, is a pretty sweeping evidentiary/factual statement, and would require a pretty sweeping characterization about the nature of rape – a characterization of breadth just as sweeping as, say, the more extreme expressions of “Rape is not about sex” (curiously, the stronger versions of the view tend to be expressed in fora where they are not subject to effective critical scrutiny or debate, e.g., pamphlets, manifestos, university conduct codes, government publications, legislative findings, etc.; and the more nuanced views, which acknowledge the oversimpliciation of the “Not about/Never about” position, tend to come out (as here) when the others are challenged – but this doesn’t mean the slogan doesn’t shape the culture, and indeed shape policy/law, in the settings in when it goes unchallenged).

Bricker’s concern about the rape shield laws’ potential unfairness doesn’t mention an extra twist that really bespeaks the fictional nature of deeming “presumptively irrelevant” the “victim’s” past sexual conduct; under some rules, while the victim’s past conduct is deemed presumptively inadmissible/irrelevant, the accused’s past sexual behavior, including issues of whether he ever engaged in nonconsensual sexual behavior, is explicitly admissible. I.e., it’s permissible and relevant to show that the defendant may have engaged in nonconsensual sex with strangers, thus repudiating his claim that the sex with this victim was consensual; but he cannot point to the fact that the victim previously engaged in consensual sex with strangers to bolster his defense that she did so on this occasion. This could be the result even if the “victim” denied his consent allegation by saying “Of course I’d never have consented to go home from the bar with you; I’m not that kind of girl at all” – and even if defendant could otherwise show she had gone home from many a bar with many a stranger. Given that defendant is on trial facing criminal penalty, and the alleged victim is not, and that defendant has a constitutional right to confront his accusers, forgive me for thinking that these two rules in tandem represent a perverse and disparate handling of past sexual behavior, which is ruled irrelevant as to the victim on doctrinal grounds, and relevant as to the accused.

As this is about the only case I can think of in which a defendant is not fully free to point to the character and behavior of his accuser in attacking the accuser’s credibility and/or the presence of an element of the crime (here, consent), and as I can’t think of any crime that has given rise to any substantial organized sloganeering (whether 17 Google hits, or 400, or whatever) along the “Rape Is Not About Sex” lines, it’s not ridiculous to suggest that the simplistic version of the slogan/concept did indeed serve as a stalking horse for substantive, substantial, and arguably unfairly punitive, shifting of benefits and penal burdens.

95

Make it 5 moderate feminists, including one who regularly buys Ms. Magazine. I do not believe rape is never about sex. In fact, I’ll even agree that sex is almost always a factor in rape, and the only reason I’ve stuck the “almost” in there is because I’m aware that there might well have been at least one rape in the entire history of mankind in which sex wasn’t a factor.

I’ve also read far too many rape cases where the accused’s justification for the rape is some variation on “She was asking for it.” or “She wanted it.” including one recent local case where the victim was a 13 or 14 year old girl. I suspect some of the more extreme “rape is about violence” talk is in reaction to the extreme notion that any woman who is raped in some way asked for it.

96

Well, there was “Skateboarding Is Not A Crime.” But they don’t seem to be getting too far with that one.

97

I think there are some kinds of rape in which sexual desire is not a factor, or at least is unrelated to the crime in any apparent or coherent way. Many (although certainly not all) rapists seem motivated by a desire to punish their victims for some sort of social transgression. In cases where the victim’s “crime” was that to the rapist she appeared to fall on the “whore” side of the “virgin/whore” dichotomy then it may be difficult to rule out some twisted sexual desire on the rapist’s part, but there are other cases where genuine physical attraction seems unlikely.

Consider prison rape, the use of rape as punishment or as an initiation within street gangs, the rape of lesbians or gay men in gaybashing incidences, and the rape of transgendered individuals. To point to one high-profile case, while Brandon Teena’s rapists/murderers may well have been sexually frustrated I doubt they felt any particular attraction towards him. I have also heard of men in the '60s and '70s being threatened with rape by other men for the “crime” of being long-haired draft-dodgers. While sex may be a factor in some “rape as punishment” assaults, I think in most cases the rapist is simply choosing the method of assault that the victim is likely to find the most painful and humiliating.

98

Good point. I’m not an expert on the subject, and I don’t really want to become one. I’m also probably deliberately naive enough to forget that something as potentially beautiful as sex can be used in such evil, destructive ways. I stand corrected.

CJ

99

Good point. I’m not an expert on the subject, and I don’t really want to become one. I’m also probably deliberately naive enough to forget that something as potentially beautiful as sex can be used in such evil, destructive ways. On the other hand, surely even if rape is being used because sexual abuse is seen as punishment/humiliation, it must by definition have some sexual context, however warped and twisted? Sex as repulsion, rather than attraction, perhaps? This does not justify rape to me. If anything, it makes it far, far worse.
CJ

100

[quote]
originally posted by Huerta88

the accused’s past sexual behavior, including issues of whether he ever engaged in nonconsensual sexual behavior, is explicitly admissible. I.e., it’s permissible and relevant to show that the defendant may have engaged in nonconsensual sex with strangers

[quote]

Okay Bricker, is that accurate? I was under the impression that the accused’s prior behavior is admissable only under specific circumstances, not as a general rule.