not a nice topic, but been annoying me all day

[ButWhyIsTheGinGone]

Hello All,

I've been dithering whether to post this as it's not really an "issue," and it's not the nicest of subjects, but I've been thinking about it all day.
After reading and watching the fantastic "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" film, I was talking with a male friend in the pub about the horiffic scene where Lisbeth Salander (possibly my favourite fictional character ever) was attacked and anally raped by her guardian.

This led to a discussion bout how appalling an act that is, at which my friend claimed it would be far "worse for a man." I couldn't quite believe this and he said he couldn't explain it and I "really wouldn't understand." At this point a second man (drunk and not intelligent) pointed out that "women do it all the time." I didn't even acknowledge this fairly disgusting comment and the conversation changed.

But it's been bugging me all day. My friend is a sensible and intelligent man and would never say anything to deliberatly hurt or offend, but this view has shocked me and got me thinking. If a woman who has previously had consensual anal intercourse is attacked in this way....is it less "horiffic" than if a man is similarly attacked who has not?

Would be interested to hear any opinions - I'm no feminist expert but am lurkng around this board a lot more and finding a lot of the discussion really interesting.

Not condoning what those men said at all but could their misguided comment be similar to a story I read on the internet last week.

It was an interview with the woman who had been abused by Fred and Rose West but she had escaped, She said that in a way the rape by Mr West was less traumatising as she knew what to expect but that Mrs West performing oral sex on her affected her in a worse way and took longer to get over.

So you are grading the severity of rapes now? Run out of jokes?

I think ThereBeBolloX nailed it at 23:02 - your acquaintance would doubtless be horrified to have this thoughts presented to him in that way, but that's where they come from. "Well, women are FOR sex and men DO sex, so when men get sex DONE to them - as if they were women, ffs!- then of course it's worse!"

Ugh. It boils down to: Women are holes for fucking and therefore don't mind it that much. Wheras manly men's bodily integrity is very important and therefore rape would be, like, really bad.

Makes me want to puke.

And, not to pile on, Mal, but I hope you're reading what people are posting because I often respect what you write, and read your earlier posts with my jaw on the floor. My body is mine, my genitals are mine - doesn't matter what else I have done with whomsoever else I pleased, if I am not consenting to what someone is doing to me, it .... well it would ruin my world. Because my body is mine, not owned or sullied in percentages by the other people whom I have shared it with.

I'm not too sure if this is relevant here, but when I was 16 I was attacked by a cab driver who had driven me home, with my friends, from a club. We were all drunk and talking about how I, in particular, had kissed a plethora of boys that night. I was the last to be dropped off and instead of taking me home he drove me somewhere else, forced me to perform sex acts on him and digitally raped me. He then drove me home.

In terms of 'degrees' does my experience not rank highly because I was wearing a short skirt, high heels, low cut top and talked openly about kissing people?

It affected me terribly. It blew my world apart but I tried hard to deny it. Seven years on and only now I can begin to accept how it has changed the course of who I was meant to be.

When I first met DP he was of the 'well she was sort of asking for it' mentality. After being furious with him I explained what had happened to me and asked him if he thought I had 'asked' for it. He was mortified, and rightly so.

I think a lot of this sort of mentality stems from the prevalent, inherent view that women are objects. If it was their sister, mother, wife, daughter, I bet (and sincerely hope) that their initial reaction wouldn't be one of blame.

I hope that all made sense, I don't think I've posted in feminism before!

no one was ranking rapes on the basis of degrees of violence though; it was suggested that the woman's previous sexual experience determined how bad the experience was

furthermore, if rapists are convicted (ha ha) there is scope to take in to account associated levels of violence when sentencing, but rape is rape for the purposes of the charge, regardless of who did it to whom and how

Why is classifying rapes as horrible, meh, and suck it up such a priority? there never seems to be this level of energy expended towards classifying other violent assaults. i won't guess as the motivation of people who do this, but it comes across as a desire to minimise women's experiences and it smacks of 'god shut up already woman'

Each rape is potentially experienced differently, each rape can potentially effect a victim differently... But too often DIFFERENCE is confused with a value judgement & the urge to line everything up in a neat & judgmental sliding scale. This confusion between different & better is at the heart of so many issues (racism, sexism, disability misinformation etc)... And it really annoys me!

My view is:
A. Difference doesn't mean better or worse, it just means different
B. Debating difference creates division
C. Debating difference diverts attention from the real issue: all rape is horrendous. All rapists should be held accountable. No rape is excusable.

That may be so, but if you then add in a further variable where victims A or B are either assaulted randomly by a stranger or by someone he/she totally loved and trusted and you get a further, different picture.

Rape is rape. There may be additional extra levels of violence, trauma and degradation, but that doesn't mean a very violent rape is better or worse than a very degrading rape, or that a non violent rape is not traumatic.

One of my best friends had a mental health breakdown following a date rape. It is very traumatic if you feel that you can no longer trust anyone because the person who raped you was someone you previously thought was a perfectly nice person (plus these are the cases which are very rarely prosecuted because the victim feels that no one will believe them, perhaps telling them that they weren't really raped, so there is no chance for closure and little support or validation).

Plus your post made me think that you thought being raped by someone with a small penis would be better than by someone with a big penis. It didn't seem a very good analogy.

Totally agree with you there Double

who is to judge what is more horrific? you? who is to judge how an act will damage a person and their life? you?

Are you proposing that ew should grade the punishment based on severity?

becuae this is a very dangerous road to go down my friend?

you see, although the words 'graded by severity' may appear to be innocent, what actually happens is that rape is put in a list of importance.

this list of importance is then not really a list of severity at all

by doing this, you say 'well a husband raping his wife isn't as 'severe' as a stranger raping her so the sentence should be lighter'

but who are we to say this? who are we to make this distinction?

Totally agree w custardo & nooka...

Should rape have a formula with it perhaps, then we can tell people how they should feel & how much sympathy & justice they deserve?

Rape validity = [R+C] x n / (s + a + t) squared by v

R rel to attacker (partner/stranger/ friend etc)
C context (outdoors/indoors)]
N no of sexual partners
S size of penis/ object used
A units alcohol
T length of attack + time of the day

Squared by v for violence used... this seems almost more of a factor than the rape itself in societies eyes

sorry being blunt/extreme as am tired & in pain... I really hope i havent offended anyone, & many apologies if so.

But that's what we are debating really isn't it? Whether we should have a scale for rape based on these & more factors, & what that scale should/ would be used for?

So my answers are No scale, No use.

Rape cannot be made into a value based experience (even by an equation of factors!), & even if it could (which it can't), this could be used to interpret & judge other peoples experiences in a very harmful way

(Maybe missed a few factors like no. off attackers & other awful things like that but couldnt bring self to make my parady rawer... Trouble with parody is that you have to sound like the thing that revolts you, shudder)

A very important concept when discussing physical/emotional traumatic/abusive events is that there is no hierachy of pain, meaning physical pain or emotional distress experienced by the person who underwent the event/s, so there cannot be comparison of an event experienced by one person to that experienced by another. Perhaps there can be degrees of severity expressed by degree of physical injury or in legal terms, but absolutely no-one can speak about how relatively traumatic or damaging different events are to an individual.

People do this all the time though - another area it is found in is birth trauma. People say, at least you have a health baby as if that should compensate. This is gradually becoming less common but I have seen it on MN many times & very recently.

"Saying Crime B was more horrific than Crime A isn't unreasonable."

what if the victim of Crime A dies as a result of the attack while the victim of crime B recovers fully with no ongoing physical difficulties - what does that do to your classification system?

i also think it is unhelpful to introduce additional crimes when discussing rape - i think most people would agree that assault, kidnapping and attempted murder are very bad things but they are additional crimes not rape. rape is the act of having sex with someone who has not consented.

Why is it so important to classify one rape as worse, or a type of rape? Why does that matter? Why are you investing so much energy, what is motivating you here?

Rape is the act, violent assault is the act. The point of both is that they're committed to a person, one person may react differently to another and so there's little point attaching the severity of the crime to the act itself, when talking about rape, severity can only be judged/measured by the victim.

Eastern. Do you accept that with your gung ho 'let's prove me right' you are very insulting to the women on this thread that have said they have been raped?

i still am unclear about your motivations. If you are raped, who cares whether i think it was particularly awful, or worse than someone else's experience? Why would my feelings as someone completely uninvolved matter?

again, sentencing guidelines have scope to reflect additional violence inflicted beyond unlawful penetration by a penis, so there is no legal basis for rape ranking.

and your take on this as 'interesting topic for debate' seems crass, when you remember that this is a lived experience for many women. There is scope for all kinds of contrary opinions, but treating this as a pleasant discursive diversion a la how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is to me, insensitive at best

Comparing rape to being stabbed isn't very helpful.

I'm a bit bemused as to why we need to talk about a completely different act in order to put forward an argument about rape .

The problem with 'degrees of rape' is that this concept disregards the actual lived experience of the victim. It is thereby, silencing.

It also opens the door wide for misogynistic down playing of rape (short skirt/multiple partners/drunk, etc). It is playing right into the hands of those who think being raped is an occupational hazard of being a woman and something women should STFU about. (Sex class, that's what are holes are for, etc).

Also entirely agree with HereBe and Blackcurrants arguments about men's boundaries and suffering being considered much more important than women's.