Rape, torture, sex and social justice

These men were lynched because a white woman accused them of rape.

Jill over at Feministe has two posts about rape that have unsettled me some.

The first one, She was asking for it is in response to a post at Alas A blog by Nick Kiddle called My rape story.

First off, the rape in this story never happened --and that is one of the reasons why I felt the whole discussion was disjointed but could not articulate exactly why I felt so. I complained by saying that these kinds of discussions, in a way, trivialized what is a horrible act of physical and psychic violence. Then Arjet wrote this back :

Yes, Liza does have a point. A half-drunk fratboy deciding not to hear his girlfriend’s “no? is a very different thing from Serbian rape/death camps in Bosina. But. It’s. Still. Rape.

Feminists aren’t trivializing rape by insisting that all forms of non-consensual sex are rape. They’re just insisting that there’s no room for the “but it’s not really rape if…? argument.

This comment has been bothering me a lot. I just could not put my finger on what was bothering me so much about it. Then Jill fisks in Feministe | Possibly the Most Disgusting Thing I've Ever Read this really disturbing comment left on her blog and I came to realize what was bothering me.

In these kinds of posts the women are saying that if they claim they were raped :

(1) Their accusation is a factual statement and therefore,
(2) The man or men involved automatically ought to be treated as criminals.

And what some of the men are saying is that :

(1) If they do not perceive the situation as rape, then it is not rape
(2) How can you hold someone guilty of rape if it has not been proven that it was in the first place?

The reason why I am so bent out of shape over these discussions is because I'd never want to be the mother holding the hand of one my very real sons while they're defending themselves from the hypothetical words of a hypothetical girl accusing them of their hypothetical rape.

I am not a legal expert but, as a feminist, I have to thank the movement for making it possible for women to :

(1) Be taken seriously when claiming rape

(2) Seek proper medical, social and legal procedures to not only ensure her safety but also for the gathering of evidence in order to

(2) Properly bring the perpetrator(s) to justice.

What the feminist movement did not give women was the right to claim they were raped and thusly have their word be court, judge and jury against the claims of innocence from the accused.

Far too many black men have been lynched or thrown in jail due to the claims of rape by white women. I cannot honestly, as a Puerto Rican black woman sit beside my "white feminist sisters" and approve to this kind of talk. Whiteness give them an advantage that I will never have --and honestly, even Oprah with her billions and fame is still denied service in the ritziest of places. So if reminding people of black men being lynched by white women crying rape strips me from my feminist credentials, then fuck it. I don't want to be that kind of feminist.

A lot of the women involved in these discussions seem to be too young to remember the Rideout case (1978ish); which recognized that rape can occur between married couples. I remember when that decision came down because it was discussed to death in Puerto Rico and in my household. We knew of far too many women who were smacked around and abused by their husbands and this ruling in a way changed the dynamics between married couples among my parents generation.

This was one of those little epiphanies I had growing up; about how people sometimes do not have a word for the misery they're living in. I remember how my mother and her friends were embarrased yet liberated at the same time to know that maybe, just maybe, what they thought was their wifely duty was non-consensual sex and maybe, just maybe even rape.

Notice, I do not equate non-consensual sex with rape.

I am not of the school of thought that sex equals rape. I find the thought not only ludicrous, but hurtful to women in the end. The thought that sex is rape is so in line with extremist Christian fundamentalist and puritanical thought that I find it hard to take seriously as feminists the women who claim this hateful framing of sex somehow advances 'our' cause. Well, this brand of feminism certainly speaks to and advances a puritanical view of sexuality with a gloss of woman power, but it certainly does not speak for me.

What I have yet to see in any of these discussions is a 'due process' perspective. In other words, I would love to hear from lawyers or law students how due process would happen form a feminist perspective. How a feminist lawyer would protect their client and yet seek the truth --even if that truth would uncover a false claim from said client. And I would love to hear from a prosecutor or judge how these cases are tried and what are all the elements used in weighing cases of 'She said, he said'.

Rape is to me synonymous to torture. Non-consensual sex to me is not synonymous to torture. The problem I have with these discussions is that a lot of them fall into the category of 'tales of bad sex' or even worse, 'tales of hypothetical bad sex'.

Let bad sex be bad sex. If there is anything positive about Abu Ghraib is that it reminded us that rape is not a crime only perpetrated against women. Rape is an instrument of torture and it is used on anybody, male or female; young or old.

Let's not confuse rape with sex --whether good or bad. Ever.

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