Recording rape culture

[BarefootAcrossHotLegoPieces]

I'd like to use this thread to record examples of rape culture - when individuals, the media, or both, minimise rape and sexual assault.

It's rarer now to see a headline about a "romp" and find it describes a rape, but some commentators still leave a lot to be desired.

I hope this will be a long running thread, as with the Victims of Violence thread, to note examples.

I will start with two below.

Lurcio 4th March: In this country, I'd sign a petition to revamp our laws round, say, the age of consent, such that for any child under 16, if the sexual partner was over 16 and the age gap between parters was greater than two years, the older partner was automatically prosecuted without regard to whether the victim had supposedly "consented" or not.

This thread is very interesting. I know I have come in on it late, and am just trying to read through all the posts, but want to back up Lurcio in this: in light of the linked cases recently posted about older men (it could be women too) abusing children, it is disgusting to think that if the little girl,say, in the Adam Johnson case had been 16, it would have somehow been considered to be all right. It wouldn't have been. Lurcio is right in my opinion.

Apart from anything else it is now known that the brain has not fully developed till much older than was previously thought, at least 20.

Some other countries have similar laws - where the age of consent is related by the age gap involved. So there is a higher AoC when one partner is an adult than where both are the same age.

WomanWithAltitude

They are called 'Romeo and Juliet' laws and while I am not sure about the name I certainly support the idea.

Just to clarify (because I know that sometimes these laws can be used negatively). I would support an increase in age of consent to 18 with a clause in the event of the older person being a couple of years older (possibly on a sliding scale) and the younger at least 16.

Thank goodness...

www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/14344684.Brother_of_murdered_Newport_teenager_Nikitta_Grender_sent_to_prison_for_rape/?ref=fbshr

That's excellent news.

Thank goodness Solicitor General Robert Buckland QC stepped in to challenge the first (non) sentence.

The rape of the little girl was horrendous and vicious. If the first judge thought the eighteen year old perpetrator should not go to ordinary prison, he should still have been sentenced to a psychiatric prison. His sister having been raped and murdered does not mean he is free to go around raping himself. There must be something very wrong with him.

www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/four-months-jail-for-rape/2707119/

This new notice is from last year but is shocking,

A stepfather raped his nine year old stepdaughter and got four months jail. The defence said he had been abusing prescription medicine and was 'genuinely remorseful'.

There's been quite a lot of discussion on this thread of different cultural attitudes to rape/ child marriage, etc., so I thought I'd through this in the mix: Virginia's state legislature finally outlaws child marriage.

Apparently (I had not realised this - apologies if it is already widely known), there are quite a lot of states in America, including New York, where girls below the age of consent can "get" (read "be forced into") marriage if they are pregnant. To quote from the article, "Advocacy groups argue that allowing younger teenagers to marry is a terrible idea — parents might be not just consenting but forcing their children to marry. Judges in New York, at least, have approved marriages where the age differences between the partners would otherwise lead to an investigation of charges of statutory rape. It's illegal in New York for an adult to have sex with someone under 16, even if the sex is consensual."

www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/marlborough-school-sex-abuse-victim-at-fault-for-staying-sil#.praPVnRQ1l

A school accused a groomed teenage girl of being “negligent and careless and said negligence and carelessness contributed to and proximately caused the injuries and damages”, and saying that she “consciously exposed other girls to the risk of abuse" despite the fact that she did report it to the school and nothing was done.

This is not recent news, but recent enough.
www.jihadwatch.org/2014/02/saudi-muslim-cleric-suggests-that-baby-girls-wear-hijabs-to-prevent-rape

The idea is that baby girls need to cover up to prevent themselves from being raped.
It is an extreme version of the idea that a short skirt, for example, is inviting rape.

I think it was related to this.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/saudi-preacher-who-raped-and-tortured-his-five-year-old-daughter-to-death-is-released-after-payin

I first read about it in a newspaper like The Times a few years ago, but this was all I could find on the internet now.

It is so unbelievably awful.

Not well publicised, because the rapists are always wealthy and the victims poor, not Western:

Saudi Embassies always protect those diplomats who treat their domestic staff as sex slaves (as they can in Saudi Arabia)
e.g. In India the Saudi embassy claimed the rape & torture allegations were "baseless" and that the raid by Indian police to rescue the imprisoned Indian women was a breach of diplomatic privilege.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/one-of-the-most-prominent-rabbis-in-the-us-does-not-believe-rape-within-marriage-exists-a6986321.

A rabbi in America does not know there can be rape in marriage. He/others say there are no real campus rapes just people reporting later after deciding they regret the sex.

The Stanford Rape Judge passed only a six month sentence on the star athelete student caught red handed raping a girl behind a dumpster while she was completely unconscious.

www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/us/judge-in-stanford-rape-case-is-being-threatened-who-is-aaron-persky.html

The Guardian reported, the judge said Mr. Turner had “less moral culpability” for his actions because he was intoxicated, and he had “no significant record of prior criminal offenses

The judge also appeared to suggest that the jail sentence might be an “antidote” to the anxiety the former student may have suffered from the intense media attention. He told the courtroom, according to reports: “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. I think he will not be a danger to others

And seeming to accept the defendant’s account (Mr. Turner said the victim consented), the judge said: “I take him at his word that subjectively that’s his version of his events. … I’m not convinced that his lack of complete acquiescence to the verdict should count against him

Then there is what the father said - apart from his son's life should not be ruined for 20 minutes of action
In his statement, Dan Turner [the father] said his son planned to use his time on probation to educate college students about the dangers of alcohol consumption and sexual promiscuity so that he could give back to society in a net positive way

I particularly hate the way the father makes it seem like general promiscuity, implying it was the girl's too; and the way he calls rape promiscuity.

Horrible isn't it, Kind.

Unbelievable - were it not for the fact that it actually happened.