Rape on trial
I rarely agree with Johann Hari, rightly named a "cunt" by Busted, and one of those horrible "liberals" whose views would not disgrace the average Republican, but there's always room for surprises. His article about rape is spot on.It is almost the crime that is not a crime, so casually is it treated and so muddled is the thinking on it. On the one hand, you have morons who claim that "she deserved it" because she has had a few more sexual partners than the Virgin Mary or was wearing a short skirt, and on the other you have clownish feminists who insist that rape is not about sex but always about power. (Which is bollocks that no one would repeat if they had not overdosed on Foucault. In his terms, everything is about power, which is true, but things are not only about power, and the power relationship that they manifest is not all there is to say about them.)
The chief problem with convicting rapists is that people (and men in particular) just don't believe that it's all that common. (And by extension, people believe that most rape reports are made by women who are settling scores with the accused man. That newspapers report the very rare occasions this happens prominently, but don't bother giving much coverage to convictions helps reinforce this view.) The victim is disbelieved from the get-go. (I should think many women do not report rapes precisely because they realise that they will be put on trial as much as their attacker.) The police are sceptical, not sympathetic. The trial focuses on the victim. Her sexual history is dragged into view, her story picked apart. The jury is allowed to consider that if she's done a few guys, she must have done this guy and then "regretted it". If she has had a drink or two, the case is doomed. Meanwhile, the jury is not allowed to draw conclusions from the man's sexual history, and if he's had a few, well, that's a mitigating circumstance, as though it was okay to fuck a chick against her will if you've had a drink.
We need to change the presumptions of young men. I've never raped a woman, and I never will, not even by "accident", because I'm very careful to secure consent. I do not fuck women who are drunk if they would not fuck me sober (and I know they would because I gain their consent when they're sober, not after they have been drunking -- a pissed-up chick going "I'd do you any time, even if I hadn't had a bucketful" is not what we're discussing here). We need more convictions for rape, less excuses for rapists. I'm not saying we should all have signed consents (although it's not a terrible idea) but I am saying that if you were not certain, you would be taking a huge risk. I do not know what we have for evidentiary guidelines, but I'd like to see discussion of a woman's sexual history outlawed in rape trials, and clarity that a defence based on "making a mistake", because of a woman's clothing or your misunderstanding that it would be okay to fuck her because she's got about a bit, must fail. I think it's past time that we did not force raped women to face their rapists, but allowed them to give testimony by video. Is justice served by some cunt of a lawyer breaking a woman who has suffered enormous psychological damage down in the courtroom, so that he can claim that she is not telling the truth on account of being a bit unhinged?
posted by Dr Zen @ 2:43 pm
8 Comments:
I've also never understood why we must have the victim in the courtroom. The defense must be allowed the right to cross-examine, but in the crucible of a crowded courtroom, in front of the dirtbag that quite likely did just what she said or they wouldn't be there in the fucking first place... They should be able to go through that process on video and show it to the jury with the legal teams in attendance.
I'm not sure disallowing discussion of her sexual past is necessarily a good idea. Though I agree it's MUCH more in the minority than is perceived, there *are* cases of vindictive women making spurious accusations. This could be the fourth time she's made such an accusation, having recanted three times. Who knows?
OTOH, much worse is the fucktardery of not discussing the accused's sexual history. How is that not pertinent? I mean, I get the fucking legal mumbo-jumbo, but what's good for the gander is good for the goose, you know?
I think on the whole I agree with what you say. The justice system ought to be about finding justice for the victim, not stacking up loopholes for shithead rapists. If I have a real concern it's that we don't swing so far the other way where we're willing to just accept wrongful convictions on some to make sure a few of the real dirtbags don't get away.
Not an easy thing by far...
We need to change the presumptions of young men.
Sorry, focused on the legal part, but I wanted to say that I thought this was well said.
Frankly, in some ways, it's an argument for abstinence before marriage :-) (yeah, I'm definitely taking it to extremes, just for fun, don't freak out.) Casual sexual relationships open up a plethora of Pandora's Boxes that no young person on the make is ever going to consider completely while they're following Willy around the room looking for action.
The "no is no" concept isn't that hard to figure out. It's a matter of respect, and perhaps that's what young men are not learning, to respect the opposite sex, regardless of your state of arousal. Even if she's sober, acts all bothered and starts making out, then decides she's out of her depth and says it's time to stop, any reasonable guy can just go into the other room and freakin' whack it off, move on, stay out of trouble. If he respected the young lady, that's just what he would do.
Or next time take her to a better restaurant :-)
Discussing the victim's sexual history and discussing whether she's ever accused anyone else of rape are different things. Most women would not consider a prior rape to be part of their "sexual history" in this sense. Asking a woman on oath whether she's ever accused anyone of rape before would be okay in my book. (This would not extend to allowing hearsay: in which her friends give testimony that she told them she was raped.)
I don't think wrongful convictions are a real worry, any more than they are in any other case. If you are done for mugging, and the only evidence is that some guy says you did it, you'll generally get off. I'm not suggesting a presumption of guilt just because you are accused. Of course not. Only that there should be a fairer route to the truth.
I agree that it's all about respect. Young men are not taught to respect anyone except sports stars and the rich. That's a Bad Thing in my books.
I agree with all that, and I think it's going to get worse. Teen girls have accepted being called sluts and hos now thanks to the music industry, call each other that for "fun," and think nothing of tossing revealing pics of themselves up on MySpace. A couple girls (13 YO) I know went into a store downtown and had their boyfriends take sexy pics of them trying on leather minis and fuck-me boots. Then they posted the photos online. Yet teen boys are supposed to respect them. Of course they SHOULD, no matter what, but that's not exactly realistic in some cases. A lot of moms think it's cute for their daughters to go to school dressed like hookers. No one is addressing this, and if you dare mention it, you're accused of being a religious prude. Me? Hah.
The grey area is the consent part. If the man says she gave it and the woman says she never, it comes down to his word against her and if the one lying is convincing, then the wrong person gets vilified.
I maintain that the law should be that the woman has to say 'yes' rather than the present state of affairs where she has to say no although that still leaves the grey area.
I agree, Lucy. As I noted, I don't think we're far short of needing signed consents. The romantic view of seduction -- in which a man chases an "unwilling" woman -- which Hollywood so fiercely promoted doesn't really reflect our world.
What usually happens in cases of the type you are discussing (which rarely even get to court, because the prosecution knows that juries will acquit rapists when it's he said/she said) is that the defence will try to provide a motive for lying (the rapist's motive is obvious). After all, the woman has to have some reason for accusing the man. Usually, that boils down to "she fucks around" or "she's hysterical". They tend to rely on the woman's poor mental state post-rape, rather than produce any real evidence that she is an "attention seeker" or whatever it is that they theorise led her to accuse the rapist falsely.
But a woman who falsely accuses a man without a clear and rather obvious motive is sociopathic. This can be shown by examining her history in other ways. Yes, this leads to difficulty in securing convictions in cases where women with prior mental illness have been raped (because the defence simply claims she's mentally unstable and made it all up). But this is always going to be a difficult area.
Paula, you are very right. Because concern at "progressiveness" tends to be a (misguided) pursuit of the right, the left has tended to take the opposite view automatically (that all progress is a good thing, and all outcomes of modernity are good). I don't think the sexualisation of girls is a good thing, and I don't think the focus on sex as a commodity in the media is a good thing. Without breaching the freedom of expression that we hold dear though, I don't know how we can fix that.
Money talks. If the core demographic of 18-45 year olds stopped supporting films, TV, other media, fashion, etc. that promotes the gratuitous and careless sexualization of not just girls, but women of any age, then media would turnabout and follow the $$. The problem is that it's the very people caught up and enjoying that sort of gratification who would have to revolutionize their own values and support a more respectful view of women and relationships.
I don't know how you do that either, without drawing stupid, arbitrary lines. After all, not all depictions of sexuality are gratuitous. You'd end up with the "I know it when I see it" nonsense...
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