Rape

Now We’re Just Haggling

Stephanie Zvan9 Comments

The charges against Julian Assange were read out in a British court on Tuesday:

She said the first complainant, Miss A, said she was victim of “unlawful coercion” on the night of 14 August in Stockholm.

The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.

The second charge alleged Assange “sexually molested” Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her “express wish” one should be used.

The third charge claimed Assange “deliberately molested” Miss A on 18 August “in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity”.

The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on 17 August without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.

Yes, “charges” is the appropriate word, used in both the applicable British and EU policies around extradition. Despite this, we continue to see people who insist, due to ignorance or some even less savory mental process, that no one should use that word until those charges are filed somewhere in Sweden other than the extradition warrant.

With all the rules-lawyering I’m seeing around what rape is, I kind of expected that. What I didn’t quite expect, maybe because it was so early in the morning, was this:

A careful reading of the charges…would cause some people to conclude that, with the exception of the last, this is an argument about contraceptive methods during a one-night stand which has now achieved an international judicial dimension.

The last, if it occurred, would be rape.

I pointed out that if consent is dependent on use of a particular type of contraception, and that contraception is not used, there is no consent and asked whether he (of course it’s a he) would care to explain why that’s not rape?

As I thought about it more, though, I realized that it reminded me of an old, ugly joke. I retell it here in its modern form.

Him: Would you please sleep with me? I’ll shower and treat you well. I’ll make sure you enjoy it too, and I’ll wear a condom to protect you. What do you say?

Her: Sure, why not.

Him: Let’s do it without the condom?

Her: What? No! What kind of idiot do you think I am?

Him: Well, we’ve already established that you’re a slut. Now we’re just haggling over how I get to use you.

I don’t think I’ve heard a bit of apologetics over the charges, including those indulged in by Assange’s Australian attorney, that didn’t amount to that in the end. Sums up the whole attitude toward women’s sexuality pretty well.

Now We’re Just Haggling
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How Must She Behave to Have Been Raped?

Stephanie Zvan39 Comments

I don’t know whether the rape charges against Julian Assange are valid. I do know, however, that they are rape charges. It doesn’t matter whether a woman consented to have sex with you. If she tells you to stop, and you don’t stop, that is still sexual assault. I don’t care how frustrating it is or whether you hate her for the rest of your life for it. Sex you have with someone without their permission is rape.

Let’s say that again: Sex you have with someone without their permission is rape.

One more time just for clarity: Sex you have with someone without their permission is rape.

Does that tell me whether Assange did what he’s accused of doing? Nope. I just don’t know. And neither do you.

There is one more thing I do know, though. This guy shouldn’t be allowed near a single traumatized rape victim, much less in a professional capacity, if he believes that the alleged victim’s behavior tells us she wasn’t raped. Here’s his evidence:

I’ve spent much of my professional life as a psychiatrist helping women (and men) who are survivors of sexual violence. Rape is a hideous crime. Yet in Assange’s case his alleged victim – the gender equity officer at Uppsula University – chose to throw a party for her alleged assailant – after they’d had the sex that even Swedish prosecutors concede was consensual.

Even ignoring the fact that the way to characterize the sex as consensual is to claim that consent, once given, cannot be revoked for any reason (which I think we’ve dealt with above; let me know if I need to repeat myself again), this is bullshit and he should know it’s bullshit. There isn’t one damned thing that all rape victims do or don’t do in common. They don’t all get scared. They don’t all get angry. They don’t even all show that they’re upset.

What did I do when I was sexually assaulted? I went on with my plans for the evening, which were to lose my virginity. Yep, that’s right. Within hours of being sexually assaulted, I had consensual sex.

Why? Hell if I know that either. I do know it doesn’t make any sense, but that’s because I wasn’t rational. I’ll remind you that I’d just been assaulted (and suffered another type of betrayal right alongside it). I had no idea what to do. I did the easiest thing, which was to go along as though it hadn’t happened. Pretending didn’t make it go away, but it was so much simpler than figuring out how to behave in a changed world.

If Assange did rape the alleged victim, why did she behave as she did? Maybe she was in denial. Maybe she wanted to show herself she could be that strong. Maybe she was reasserting her claim to the world they both shared. Maybe she was even pissed that Assange took control from her but not particularly traumatized. I don’t know and neither do you.

Neither does Kirk James Murphy, M.D., but that didn’t stop him from weighing in on the matter in a professional capacity (something he really ought to stop to give some serious thought). It didn’t stop him from perpetuating rape myths. Hell, it didn’t even stop him from writing a post that is one long exercise in “bad girls can’t be raped.”

Who is Julian Assange’s chief accuser in Sweden? She’s a gender equity officer at Uppsula University – who chose to associate with a US funded group openly supported by a convicted terrorist and mass murderer. She just happens to have her work published by a very well funded group connected with Union Liberal Cubana – whose leader, Carlos Alberto Montaner, in turn just happened to pop up on right wing Colombian TV a few hours after the right-wing coup in Honduras. Where he joined the leader of the failed coup in Ecuador to savage Correa, the target of the coup. Montnaner also just happened to vociferously support the violent coup in Honduras, and chose to show up to sing the praises of the Honduran junta.

Well, after all that, I guess the matter’s closed. Except I still have one little question. What the fuck has that got to do with anything? Oh, wait. He explains.

Small world, isn’t it? Julian Assange is the human face of Wikileaks – the organization that’s enabled whistle-blowers to reveal hideous war crimes and expose much of America’s foreign policy to the world.

He just happens to meet a Swedish woman who just happens to have been publishing her work in a well-funded anti-Castro group that just happens to have links with a group led by a man at least one journalist describes as an agent of the CIA: the violent secret arm of America’s foreign policy.

And she just happens to have been expelled from Cuba, which just happens to be the global symbol of successful defiance of American foreign policy.

And – despite her work in Sweden upholding the human right of gender equity – in Cuba she just happens to end up associating with a group openly supported by an admitted CIA agent who himself committed mass murder when he actively participated in the terrorist bombing of a jetliner carrying a Cuban sports team…an act that was of a piece with America’s secret foreign policy of violent attacks against Cuban state interests.

Yeah…nope. Not even an accusation that a CIA agent put her up to anything–or that they ever met. Or maybe it was supposed to be the terrorists who wanted Assange arrested. Keeping state secrets hidden is right up their alley, right? Or was it supposed to be the feminists? I can’t figure out why else her job merits multiple mentions in a smear piece, and that’s all this amounts to.

Call me back when you’ve got something other than your dislike of this woman’s politics or her party planning. In the meantime, I’ll be figuring out whether this particular post reaches the level of unprofessionalism that merits lodging complaints with the appropriate oversight board.

How Must She Behave to Have Been Raped?

Droit de Seigneur

Stephanie Zvan1 Comment

As others have pointed out, child sexual abuse is not a problem exclusive to religion. Plenty of organizations in which adults have authority over children contain predators. What is unique to churches, however, is the degree of authority priests and pastors have over the adults who would normally protect these children. It’s a power they used to share with nobility, but today, with the exception of certain legal establishments that we recognize as corrupt, it’s theirs alone.

A new case out today in our local paper illustrates the problem:

The 13-year-old’s mother told police that she noticed several phone calls on her daughter’s cell phone from the pastor months ago. The woman took away the phone for a while, but didn’t speak to her daughter about the situation.

It is possible that the woman would be as hesitant to follow up if the adult in the situation were a school teacher or a sports coach, but is it likely? How about the others who discovered the situation?

Church staff members confronted Ramirez-Toxtle and he admitted the child’s allegations, but said he never had sex with her, the complaint said. “He was given a letter reprimanding his behavior, and police obtained a copy of this letter,” the complaint said.

The church staff knew about the problem. What did they do? They complained to the authority they recognized: the perpetrator of the abuse. They impotently shook their collective fingers at him instead of submitting him to the appropriate authority in this situation.

I applaud the person who recognized that this wasn’t enough, who took this matter to the police. As for the rest of them, if the fondling of a 13-year-old girl isn’t enough to make them question the proper amount of authority to grant those who claim to speak for God, what will it take? What secular horrors will they submit to on that authority? More than that, what horrors will they allow to be inflicted on others before they act?

That is the evil that the authority of religion introduces into our society.

Droit de Seigneur

Asking for It

Stephanie Zvan

Two pieces that I think speak well for themselves: Via Kammy, a new Scottish PSA:

The “Not Ever” campaign by Rape Crisis Scotland takes its inspiration for the 30-second spot from a government survey conducted this February that found that 17% of Scots believe that a woman wearing “revealing clothing” is “partly, mostly or totally to blame for being raped.”


Go watch. And via Kylie Sturgess, something to think about for those who might not understand what could possibly make some women feel uncomfortable at skeptic events:

The girl may be nuts, she may have HPD, she may be incredibly attention hungry for whatever reason, but that doesn’t make her a slut. I know some people may have personal reasons to dislike her or the discord she apparently causes, but that doesn’t make her a slut. And if you hate her, fine, and if you hate that the JREF brings her more publicity, fine, but you don’t get to go around complaining that she’s too flirtatious or that she gets all this attention just for being young and cute.

You won’t enjoy the story, but you should go read it.

Asking for It

Caring About Abuse

Stephanie Zvan14 Comments
To those implying* that your friendly local atheist is taking some new-found interest in fighting child sexual abuse because it involves the Catholic church or because Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are supporting the effort to explore legal options:

Oh, there are plenty of things I could say here. Short, pithy, pointed. Angry. Satisfying…but unhelpful. So I’ll settle for this: Are you listening to yourselves?

I’m serious. Did you think for one brief minute before sharing your first half-formed thoughts on this?

Even among child abusers, people who think they’re doing something okay are not the rule. People fight pedophilia, even when they find it within themselves. Many who do act on it come up with elaborate stories to explain away what they’re doing. The monster who says, “Mine to do with as I please,” is not common. Why would you think we’re apathetic about it?

No, I don’t sit around saying, “Child sexual abuse is bad. It should stop.” I also don’t generally say, “Gravity pulls that way. It should stick around.” The reaction to child sexual abuse is so universal that I’ve been cautioned as a writer against using it as a cheap emotional device in stories. Some things are simply so self-evident that it is an insult to say them to anyone who’s been introduced to the concept. Some statements require an explanation justifying their utterance. This is one of them.

What is it that you think of us? Do we condone child abuse normally–until it’s done in the shadow of the cross or the crescent? Are we merely callous and insensitive? Frivolous? Self-absorbed? Blind to the problem?

While you’re thinking about the audience for your condescension, think about that last option a little harder. If you are so much more personally concerned with the problem of child sexual abuse than we are, you probably know that somewhere between 10% and 25% of children are estimated to be affected. Even given lower survival rates among those children, they still grow up to be a large percentage of the population.

How many of those people you’re accusing of jumping onto a trendy and politically expedient problem are survivors of child sexual abuse themselves?

No, I can’t tell you either. I can tell you that you’ve hit at least one. Me. I don’t spend a lot of time talking about it, but who does?

I participate in certain activities instead, activities directed at helping kids survive when they’re abused, activities directed at calming people down enough that pedophiles feel free to seek treatment and that fruitful research on the problem can take place. I could tell you what they are, but I won’t, because I decide when and where I talk about this, not you.

I didn’t go through what I did, mild as it is by some standards, to be put on trial by you to prove that I care about this issue enough to have an opinion on whether it’s a good thing to put pressure on the world’s largest central religious organization to change policies that perpetuate child sexual abuse. I didn’t survive to watch that piece of me be dismissed because you don’t like how I–or someone else–talks about religion, when we’re talking about systemic, organizational enabling of abuse.

Do you want to talk about other actions you think will be more effective than prosecution, to engage people who have always wanted to help but not known how to tackle problem this pervasive and diffuse? Great. If nothing else, I’m always up for a chat on changing clerical exemptions to mandatory reporting laws. Now seems like a great time to fix those. We’ll talk.

But if you come at this questioning my motivation, I have nothing to say to you, except to ask what kind of monster you think I am. There is no grounds for discussion. We’re done.

* Not a strawman and not limited to those who dislike atheists or, sadly, even to those who appear to be angry at one or two atheists in particular. I could point, but there are some discussions that should be staked through the heart and buried at a crossroads.

Caring About Abuse

Reminders

Stephanie Zvan15 Comments

Kammy pointed me pointed me to an excellent article by Kate Harding in Salon. It’s a reminder of the inconvenient facts that some people would prefer to forget about Roman Polanski.

Can we do that? Can we take a moment to think about all that, and about the fact that Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sex with a minor, before we start talking about what a victim he is? Because that would be great, and not nearly enough people seem to be doing it.

Second, Polanski was “demonized by the press” because he raped a child, and was convicted because he pled guilty. He “feared heavy sentencing” because drugging and raping a child is generally frowned upon by the legal system. Shore really wants us to pity him because of these things? (And, I am not making this up, boycott the entire country of Switzerland for arresting him.)

Polanski is in many of the categories of people we want to believe can’t commit rape: rich, respected, charming, intelligent. He’s also in a few special categories: Holocaust survivor, relative of a Manson Family victim, long-unpunished fugitive. I know that we don’t want to associate guilt with any of these categories–but that means nothing more than the fact that we have to work harder to think about what actually happened.

In addition to Harding’s reminders, here are a few more:

  • The rich don’t commit significantly less crime than any other demographic, and their punishment is generally inversely proportional to their resources rather than directly proportional to the crime’s impact on society.
  • Respect is based only on what we know of a person–their public side.
  • Charm is an excellent way of getting what you want, which people can get very used to.
  • Intelligence is much like charm in this respect.
  • Victimhood does not keep people from victimizing others. In fact, it increases the chances. However, the vast majority of victims manage not to drug people they want to have sex with or ignore them when they say, “No.”
  • There are many people who helped Polanski comfortably escape custody this long, many people who worked with him in places where he could not be extradited. This tells us something about them and the accommodations they’ve made, but it tells us nothing about the rape.

But enough of me. Go read Harding.

Reminders

Today’s Reading

Stephanie Zvan

Via Bora, comes today’s must-read, a combination of horrific science reporting and blaming rape victims. Here’s the actual science:

In the study, psychologists at Leicester Uni asked men to consider themselves in various scenarios with a female acquaintance and find out if or when they were more likely to coerce a woman into sex. The scenarios differed with the acquaintance wearing different clothes, drinking alcohol, being aware of her previous sexual partners or her being assertive.

The main finding was that men who considered themselves sexually experienced were more likely to coerce women into sex. These men found resistance from a woman sexually arousing. Interestingly, alcohol had the opposite effect than expected with men more like to coerce sober women rather than those that were drunk.

Go read Vagina Dentata to find out how that study got misreported. Then pick your jaw up off the floor.

Also, via the author’s Twitter feed, I’d managed to miss the fact that Halliburton has managed to force their employees to not report crimes.

Today’s Reading

Not So Silent

Stephanie Zvan22 Comments

It’s mid-June and people are still writing some very impressive posts related to Silence Is the Enemy. They’re worth the read.

  • Jason has a good rundown of the situation with our shared troll. Fascinating that someone would claim to be doing this to help raise awareness of rape but never consider that consent might be an important factor.
  • ScienceWoman totally stole my idea of using music, right down to using one of the same songs. Not that she knew I was planning to or anything.
  • Also at ScienceWomen, Alice put up a reminder that sexual assault is not just an “over there” problem. It’s a problem we all share.
  • And Toaster is doing a fascinating series on the ways men are not helping other men to be part of the solution. I’d point out that he’s missing the ways that women aren’t helping men, but this time around, if he wants it to be about the guys, so be it.

Update: The above comment about Toaster’s series is in no way meant to imply that he should be writing about anything else. It’s more a wry observation about who is attending to what where in this discussion. Nonetheless, he’s on it.

Not So Silent

How Deep the Bullet Lies, Part III

Stephanie Zvan17 Comments

This story I’ve already told, at least the first part of it.

It was a perfectly normal guy who didn’t want to let go of me when I was in my late teens. We’d been hanging out, kissed a little bit, but I was done. He wasn’t. It took making it very clear that one of us was going to be injured to get him to realize I meant it and let go.

If I had been more intimidated (he was a big Navy boy) or less sober or less willing to risk hurting him or being hurt, there’s a very good chance it would have ended in rape. The fact that he was horrified when he figured out I really did mean it wouldn’t have changed that at all.

Unlike the events in Part I and Part II of this series, this wasn’t a traumatic experience. Quite the opposite. Oh, it was scary enough while it was happening, but the fact that fighting back solved the problem was…cathartic. Educational.

Then, nearly two decades later, I decided to mention it. That was also educational. Not terribly cathartic.

I’ve had a friend decide to “walk away” over everything that happened in the last week and a half. I discovered that the person whose behavior I asked my friend to look at, thus dragging him into the whole mess, was using me and everyone else to generate controversy and pull attention to a cause he’d adopted. (Why do I believe Jason? This, mostly. It’s all too familiar: the big idea, the disregard for whether anyone else has consented to participate or is being hurt, the “regret” that changes no behavior.)

I’ve learned a few things about myself. I’ve learned just how stubbornly determined I am to see some things through and to get something worthwhile even out of awful situations. I’ve learned much more about the limits of how far I can push myself into the territory of using myself up.

I’ve learned how sane and self-sufficient I sound even when I’m on the verge of cracking. Funny, even. I can’t drop all that, apparently. I can take someone apart and lay the pieces out for everyone to see, but I can’t lash out (even when it’s the kinder option). I can tell someone what I need, but I can’t make them feel it. The more that’s at stake, the less I’m able to make myself manipulate the situation.

I’ve learned how far I’ll go to protect my voice, including removing it entirely from play. There’s only one person who knows how close I came to deleting this blog and walking away from the internet. I found the support I needed and wrote these instead, amping up instead of shutting down, but the outcome was very much in doubt for a while.

I’ve learned how it feels to be on the receiving end of that off-topic kindness and silliness in the midst of a tough slog. I owe D.C., Ambivalent Academic, Will, Becca, DuWayne and Jason for that in ways I can’t quite express. Toaster, too, even if he wasn’t specifically trying to lighten the mood. I grin every time I see that cartoon.

But that’s enough about me and what I’m taking away from (hoo, boy) the first half of this month. This series of posts was originally intended to say something about the fact that we can’t know who we’re talking to when we’re talking about tough topics like this. I don’t know whether it’s done that, but either way, it’s time to shift the focus away from me. Back to the broader topic tomorrow.

For now, go find something fun to read at the blogs that are supporting Silence Is the Enemy with their page-view revenue. As always, Bioephemera has much that is weird and wonderful. Go read and marvel.

How Deep the Bullet Lies, Part III

How Deep the Bullet Lies, Part II

Stephanie Zvan

I was fifteen and sitting in the back of a pickup truck in a parking lot at UW-Stout on Christmas Eve eve. We’d gotten a bit off track.

On track would have been meeting the guy to whom I was going to “lose” my virginity. Virginity didn’t actually mean anything to me, but mine was getting annoying. I kid you not, there were two guys, uncle and nephew but very close in age, arguing over which one of them was going to take my virginity nine months down the road when I turned sixteen and was legal.

I had other plans, which included shutting these guys up already. They also included the younger brother of the fiance of a friend of mine. They didn’t include everybody but me, my friend, and her fiance’s father working until sometime that evening, but they all were. Hence the diversionary road trip until we could pick up younger son.

There was a topper on the back of the truck and maybe a heater. I don’t remember it being freezing. I do remember being offered a rum and Coke. My friend, who at eighteen was hoping she was pregnant, didn’t drink anything. I’m not sure whether I had a second drink.

I’m not chatty, so I didn’t really notice how hard I’d been hit until it was time to climb out of the back of the truck and back into the cab. If I didn’t have a second drink and the rum wasn’t 151, I was drugged.

He insisted that I sit between him and my friend. Then he unzipped his pants and explained that unless and until I “lent him a hand,” we weren’t going anywhere.

So I did. I was too intoxicated to think to counter-threaten with the fact that he’d already committed one federal felony by hauling me across state lines to get me drunk. I had nowhere to go, because I was trapped between him and my sober, silent “friend.” My one coherent thought was that this would be a very useful time for that passing out thing some people did around alcohol. I did that too.

I couldn’t stay passed out through the whole ride home, though, probably because it wasn’t safe. So there are nightmare flashes here and there of streetlamp illumination moving at freeway speeds. I remember being back at my friend’s house, younger son showing up after work, losing that pesky virginity because it was part of the plan (if not necessarily right then) and because if I didn’t follow the plan, I’d have to figure out what else to do.

My friend told younger son a few days later what had happened. It was apparently important to explain to him why I didn’t want to date him, although the truth is that he was very sweet but not that bright. She never said anything to me about why she didn’t try to stop it.

Every few years, she sends a note saying she’d like to catch up. She sent another one yesterday.

Lessons learned: (1) Letting someone mix your drinks means trusting them with your life. (2) The number of your friends is much smaller than the number of people you hang out and kid around with.

As I said before, I’m writing this now for the one person who deserves to know. I’m posting it because there are a few others who might get something out of it. I’ve never talked to anyone about it, not for any of (what I assume are) the standard reasons, but because I don’t want to spend any more time or energy on it. Even then, I knew people who’d been through far worse experiences and far worse betrayals.

This might be painful to you, which I understand and am sorry about. I still don’t want to talk about it. Or hear about it. If you feel you need to write something, Sheril’s got some suggestions about where your note can do some good for people who need it, badly. If that’s not enough for you, she has some other suggestions about things you can do to help those people. Not all of them involve your money. Do those instead.

How Deep the Bullet Lies, Part II