The "Unstoppable" Force

What is is about the penis that makes it so powerful, mere men can't be expected to control it? According to the popular imagination, one glance at a woman wearing a short skirt; and/or inebriated after one-too-many rum and cokes; and/or walking on her own in a secluded area; and/or lying in a bed; and/or any number of other scenarios supposedly suggesting sexual availability....and the penis turns into an unstoppable penetrative missile. Its hapless owner can do nothing to prevent himself from being launched full-tilt into the woman who was unlucky enough to catch his eye.

Written like that, the idea seems absurd. Yet it's an idea that holds sway among hoards of the population when they believe something a rape victim did somehow made her complicit in her attack. She wore revealing clothes. She was drunk. She was unguarded. She was in a bed. My goodness, she was easy pickings for any passing penis. Men couldn't possibly be expected to resist the temptation of having sex with her in those circumstances, could they?

Er, yes they could. Countless numbers of men seem to manage it just fine. Penis and testosterone together may be a strong combination, but believe it or not, they can be efficiently overridden by that other redoubtable human organ, the brain. But what do I know, I'm only a woman? Luckily for me, a man called Martin Robbins has recently made the exact same point when examining the excuses given by philandering husbands for their adultery. Dear oh dear, those men's penises simply wouldn't let them have a say in the matter, poor things... Well, Martin Robbins doesn't buy that and neither do I.

And neither should you. Especially when it comes to rape. No man is so risibly weak he can't prevent himself from assaulting a woman because his sexual organs happened to be aroused at the time. It's an excuse that should be treated with the contempt it deserves. What terrible thing would happen if a man actually refused to allow himself to be penis-led? Would his nether regions spontaneously combust or something?

The hospitals would be overcrowded with poor males seeking attention for serious genital burns if that were the case. Seeing as they're not - and there doesn't seem to be any other medical evidence of harm to those who can exercise some command over their members, let's assume that all men - even rapists - actually make conscious decisions regarding the insertion of their penises into other human beings.

With this in mind, a public service announcement offering advice on how to avoid rape doesn't lecture women on what they should wear, where they should go or how they should behave, no. Instead, it appeals to the owners of both the penises and the brains. And the message is very simple:

"Don't rape her."

Why don't they get it?

Rape has been very much in the headlines this week. From Ken Clarke's ill-judged remarks that some rapes were "more serious" than others, to the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund charged with raping a member of staff at the hotel he was staying in.

Not surprisingly, media attention has also spilled over from straight reports of the situations to comment and editorial pieces. What some of those pieces have shown is how ill-informed members of the supposed intelligentsia can be when it comes to rape. Which is a kind description. But I would rather think they were ill-informed than assume they were simply peddling tired old misogynistic explanations of rape with no attempt at sympathy or understanding for those who have experienced it.

Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail declares "some rapes are worse than others" and later in the same piece says:
It means a dispute about consent, often between people who are already in a sexual relationship.
It means one person’s word against another’s, in highly unequal circumstances, with the accuser granted anonymity and the accused under the glare of publicity.

Reducing the definition of rape to "a dispute about consent" fails to recognise the act of sexual violence for what it is. Rape is violence, using sex as a means of delivering it. Rape is never a situation where the poor old rapist got a bit confused and thought his victim wanted to have sex with him when in fact, she didn't. That definition does a disservice to the many decent men who are not rapists. Decent men know when a woman isn't keen on the idea of having sex with them and they don't force the issue. Because they are not rapists. A rapist doesn't care whether his victim is willing or not.

Writing in his personal blog, the Conservative MEP, Roger Helmer decides Ken Clarke was right in making a comparison of seriousness for rape. Helmer then uses murder scenarios to illustrate his point. A hostage killed by his kidnapper and a man killed by a jealous husband after being found in bed with his wife.
In the first case, the murder is calculated, premeditated, deliberate and undertaken for money. In the second case, none of these comments applies. And according to Helmer, a more lenient sentence would be given to the jealous husband.

He then compares this with the "classic" stranger rape (you guessed it, the dark alley rapist) and a supposed "date rape" where a woman changes her mind at the last minute, but the young man, in the heat of the moment, is unable to restrain himself and carries on.

Helmer then trots out a "classic" rape myth:
...in the first case, the blame is squarely on the perpetrator and does not attach to the victim, in the second case the victim surely shares a part of the responsibility, if only for establishing reasonable expectations in her boyfriend’s mind.
Well, well, well - it's the victim's fault again. She led him on, the poor rapist simply couldn't help himself.

Utter, utter twaddle. And misogynistic twaddle at that. Not to mention being offensive to the many men who are not rapists and are perfectly able to restrain themselves, even when aflame with sexual desire.

Both Helmer and Hichens have also missed the point about the comparative "seriousness" of rapes.

ALL rapes are EQUALLY serious. But some rapes involve extra criminal activity beyond the basic violent act of coercion and enforced penetration, which characterises all rapes. AS WELL AS raping their victim, some rapists ALSO kidnap, imprison, torture or physically abuse the unfortunate recipient of their violence.

And by the way, those rapists may or may not have already met their victim. A "date rape" can involve as much extra violence as a "stranger rape". Conversely, a "stranger rape" may not involve extra violence beyond the rape act itself. What is serious in each case is how badly the victim will have been traumatised by what happened.

And even without any extra violence, is a "date rape" really less serious than a "stranger rape", Mr Helmer? As one of the commentators on his blog post put it: is this not like saying that a peadophile who abuses his own daughter is less culpable than one who abuses a stranger?

And with all this emphasis on the relative seriousness of different "types" of rape, one thing both pieces seriously lacked was any genuine compassion for the victims of these rapists. Most of whom get away with their crimes over and over again.

"Serious, proper rape"

It's time to start tearing your hair out when your own Justice Secretary - a former lawyer - reinforces the rape myths and dangerous stereotypes that contribute to the UK's woeful failures to convict rapists for their crimes.

The Conservative minister, Ken Clarke was outlining possible proposals to halve prison sentences for criminals who plead guilty early, including rapists. In an interview on BBC Five Live, it was put to him that many rapists would therefore be out of jail in 15 months as the average sentence in the UK for rape is five years.

Clarke insisted that figure "includes date rape, 17-year-olds having intercourse with 15 year olds... A serious rape with violence and an unwilling woman - the tariff is longer than that."

That even the Justice Secretary believes "date rape" is somehow less serious than "stranger rape" depressingly underlines just how ingrained misconceived attitudes towards rape are.

And incidentally, the sentencing average does not include teenagers involved in underage sexual activity. That is not regarded as rape by UK law.

So once again the image of the knife-wielding stranger brutally dragging a passing woman into a dark alley to violate her is held up as being the "classic" rape. When in fact, it is the rarest type of rape.

Is it also fair to say stranger rape is more horrifying than that carried out on a woman by someone she has already met? No. All rape is horrifying and has an appalling effect on the victim, however it was carried out and by whom.

So, should a rapist's sentence be halved if he is "considerate" enough to confess so his victim doesn't need to participate in his trial? No. Since when did an admission of guilt make the crime less serious for the victim? Instead, how about sentences being doubled for rapists who insist on pleading not guilty and are then convicted? That would be far more fair.

As for the issue of violence - some rapes being seen as less "serious" because the victim wasn't left with visible cuts and bruises - then the Justice Secretary and anyone else involved in the legal system should consider this:

1. The very act of penetrating an unwilling victim is an act of violence.

2. If violence in addition to penetration is carried out against the victim, it would make more sense to add Actual Bodily Harm or Grievous Bodily Harm to the charge sheet, rather than consider a rape perpetrated without extra violence as being somehow less "serious".

After a media outcry, Clarke later claimed he had been misinterpreted, saying "all rape is a serious crime".

But before that, in an interview on Sky News, Clarke complained: "Rape has been singled out as an example [of the proposals under discussion] mainly to add a bit of sexual excitement to the headlines."

That the Justice Secretary equates rape with sexual excitement is breathtakingly crass. His remark that talk of rape was being used as a means to spice up a news story is beneath contempt. And underlines once more his ignorant assumptions about the reality of rape.

I only pray any proposal to allow rapists to have discounted sentences in return for an early guilty plea will be well and truly scotched. I leave the last words on that subject to a rape victim herself:

I will still have to live with the fact my rapist is laughing at me, live with the memories etc. It is in effect a long sentence followed by life on parole. I am the victim not the culprit, I would have to be the culprit to have rights. That is the society we live in, that is what our legal system gives us.