To not see why people are so annoyed...?

[curiousgeorgie]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2709730/Richard-Dawkins-sparks-outrage-Twitter-debate-saying-date-rape-bad-stranger-rape-worse.html

Sorry for the daily mail link, I know some don't like that.

I think I agree with him and I don't think it takes anything away from victims.... Am I wrong?

I have never been raped. I am very fortunate and i feel, terribly for people who have been raped. I find the subject upsetting to consider tbh.
I imagine that all rape is horrifc and traumatic and should be dealt with very seriously indeed.
I still think there must be degrees though. And im not convinced its appropriate to separate the penetration from the coexisting violence
Iyswim.
Someone upthread asked about the circumstances of losing a child and the suggestion is that as the end result is the same, it matters not how the loss occurs. I disagree. Yes, its all unfathomably awful. But that doesnt mean there are not degrees of trauma.

However, i'm not sure its a discussion that needed to take place in this way.
It reminds me of stephen fry calling for tougher legal disincentives against ppl (well, that would be children really wouldnt it) making false claims of abuse.
Its just not the sort of thing that men should be philosophising about in this way because it all makes it look like women and children are making too much fuss about it iyswim.

I havent expressed myself very well. Sorry.

Funny how some of the posters on here are saying that any incident of rape is equally bad for the victim, whatever the circumstances, and should not be differentiated, while we've had a victim posting on here several times, strongly arguing the opposite based on her own experience. What she said didn't count, apparently.

I think the only area where you might possibly say there are "worse" and "lesser" categories is where you have compromised apparent consent. Because consenting or being capable of consent is a spectrum full of grey areas: between fully sober and blindly drunk, between full capacity and very severe learning difficulties, and between enthusiastic mutual pursuit and murderously threatening coercion, even between awake and asleep there are many degrees. The law has to draw a line, but the points at which it is drawn are sometimes necessarily arbitrary (although juries tend to err on the side of a very low bar of consent).

Dawkins' examples OTOH are twattish, I despair of that man sometimes.

I was gang raped at the age of 15 by three men and left terribly damaged Herbofdeath.

Why does my opinion not count too?

I count that as no more or less horrific than someone who was raped by one close relative or five strangers.

The law may grade levels of rape. That does not make it right.

"while we've had a victim posting on here several times, strongly arguing the opposite based on her own experience. What she said didn't count, apparently."

That's rather like me saying that just because I don't have any trauma from my abuse as a child then so will no one else. People are different and you can't make decisions based upon anecdotal evidence.

Your opinion does count too. BUt it's not the only opinion, and people have been suggesting that all rape victims feel the same way about this, which they clearly don't.

Sorry Herb,

The way you worded your previous post made it seem as if the people who were arguing against your viewpoint had no personal experience of rape, but were ignoring one person who had.

Apologies if I misunderstood.

What I was saying is that a rape victim who has identified herself as such has posted on here several times, strongly stating that the date rape that she experienced was a much less serious thing than a stranger with knife rape would have been. Yet some posters are still suggesting that to a rape victim any type of rape is as bad as any other type. Her opinion doesn't appear to have been taken into account.

That would be because people have different opinions Herb.

I'm one of those saying every rape is bad, I will not differentiate that one is worse than the other, it feels inherently wrong to me.

But that doesn't mean I didn't read that posters thoughts. I just don't agree with them. Just because one person says something, or even strongly argues their case, it doesn't mean everyone immediately has to change their mind.

In my head a rape by a stranger at knife point is more terrifying AT THAT POINT than when I was raped by a boyfriend. I was never in fear for my life.

However, 20 years later what that fucker did to me still affects me, just as I imagine it would any rape victim.

There are no degrees of rape, it's a horrific thing.

The very fact that the law states that there is a rape hierarchy (or, rather, victim hierarchy) shows that it is unfit for purpose.
So what do you propose instead?

MostWicked - what do YOU, personally, think about the concept of rape hierarchy. Put aside what the law says, which does not reflect the reality of rape, and other crimes sufficiently, and express yourself, if you would.
I have already stated that I agree with the current CPS guidelines in English law. All rape is equal, then aggravating factors make some rapes worse than others. The system of bringing rapists to justice is not good enough. There are not nearly enough convictions, but that is a different issue. The judgement of the aggravating factors that make some rapes a more serious offence than others, I completely agree with. I fail to see what possible alternative there could be. In fact, despite all the criticism I have received, I don't think anyone has even suggested an alternative.

is rape not by definition violence?
That is already accepted in the law, but some rapes have additional violence on top of the actual rape itself.

The reason surely why rape whilst armed carries a higher tarriff is because carrying and using a knife is itself a serious offence.
Yes, but it would not come under a separate charge. The criminal would not be charged with rape as one offence and carrying a knife as another. It is one offence of aggravated rape where the knife is taken into consideration as a factor that makes the rape an even more serious one.

The law may grade levels of rape. That does not make it right.
Would you prefer that it didn't?

No rapists are the same, in the exact same way to rape victim is the same, so do you propose that by you're thinking that all rape victims should feel the same???
That doesn't follow my thinking at all. I'm not the one arguing that all rapes are the same. I believe that some aggravating factors make some rapes worse than others - with all of them being abhorrent offences and all requiring a custodial sentence.

As with any crime, should a murderer be given the same sentence as another murderer? Just because they murdered a person?
Clearly the circumstances of som murders are very different to others and aggravating factors make some murders worse than others - exactly the same as I am arguing with rape.

The act of rape on a person is NOT even remotely the same as sentencing the person who committed the act of rape.
Exactly what I keep saying. This is about judging the crime, not the victim.

It does seem that people want different sentences, but don't want to acknowledge that the different sentences reflect the severity of the crime.
The severity of the crime and the effect on the victim is a completely different issue. Victims respond in very different ways and that doesn't always correlate with the severity of the crime.

Crimson, there is NEVER a grey area of consent. Someone asleep can never consent. Someone unable to communicate consent cannot consent. Using smartarse terms like 'compromised apparent consent' is bullshit - if consent is compromised, then it's not consent. The onus is on men not to rape. It's remarkably easy not to rape someone.

" even between awake and asleep there are many degrees "

eh?

what shocks me is how many people there are in the world who seek to justify rape.

For some people their first instinct seems to be to defend rapists.

Scary.

Not a grey area of consent - a grey area of capacity. There's a fair number of cases where the victim appears to consent but her capacity to give consent is impaired for whatever reason, hence, quite rightly, the other party is convicted of rape. But capacity is not defined in black and white. There's also questions of coercion where apparent consent has been obtained by god knows what means.

To state the bleeding obvious here - the burden of proof means that in practice a huge number of realises in that category will not be convicted, and even the perpetrators who fall just the right side of the criminal line are not "innocent", they have normally behaved in a vile way.

Im not seeing anyone here defending rapists tbh.

I haven't seen anyone defending rapists, justifying rape or in any way diminishing its effect on other people.

When I was 15 I was raped by the chap I had just spent a small part of the evening with. As I tried to make my way home, I was raped by some bloke who was following me (40 years ago - things were very different then).

The only difference was that one went on longer than the other.

Oh jux sorry.

It's all still trying to gussy up rape apologism, Crimson.

I reiterate; it is remarkably easy NOT to rape someone. Non-rapists actually find it impossible to rape others. Talking about diminished capacity for consent is finding excuses for rape. The very fact of someone's capacity to consent being diminished automatically means that consent does not exist. Talking about diminished capacity for consent normalises rape culture. Only rapists see someone who is asleep, or very drunk, or in a coma in a hospital, or someone severely disabled and a) gets sexually aroused by this and b) wonders if they are giving any sort of consent.

To try to look at reasons why someone would be sexually aroused in those circumstances, never mind act, is rape apologism. it's trying to pretend there are legitimate, non-rapist reasons behind thoughts, beliefs and actions that ONLY exist within rapists.