Rapes committed by women - JKR got me thinking

[scratchedbymycat]

JKR just tweeted again. I agree wholeheartedly with her views, but some of the responses have got me thinking.

Why does it matter if crime stats say women rape?

(I promise I'm not trolling here. In fact, I'm hoping for some startlingly clear objective responses to fuel my arguments.)

For me, I find it downright hateful, after all the violence and hate directed towards women by men, that stats will now say 'women are doing it to women'. That makes me so damn angry. But is feeling offended by this, on principle, enough?

On crime stats and recording... Seth Abramson (I know) on Twitter commented that the fact the perpetrator has a penis will come up in the court case. So the court will know they are not biologically female.

Also, if we say a woman raped another, doesn't that also immediately tell us the rapist was transgender? (The only group who identify as women but are also bepenised).

How does a biological women rape another? Because I've seen claims on Twitter that some biological women have been found guilty of rape. Is this a lie?

I'm trying to tease my thoughts out. Only just starting to comment about the gender identity consequences for women to friends etc, and just want to be super clear when I say anything, and not to slip into emotional anger (which happens a lot for me).

It's confusions caused by the legal concept of "joint enterprise". People can be convicted of murder despite not themselves attacking the victim, because they were part of a group of people intent on murdering the victim and it can be proven that they knew that was the intent of the enterprise and made no attempt to stop it or leave.

The same for other crimes, including rape. The joint enterprise concept was an effort to be able to convict people acting in gangs and participating in serious crime, whilst not actually physically committing the crime themselves. Rarely the crimes prosecuted using this legal concept include rape. So a woman (or man) can be convicted of rape through joint enterprise. I don't think that many ordinary people would view them as rapists in the same way as someone who was convicted of individually raping someone.

It's important to remember that rape committed by men and the equivalent serious sexual assault that could be committed by a woman have the same sentencing and are treated as equally serious crimes. The fact that one is labelled as rapist and the other as a sexual assaulter says nothing about the gravity and horror of either crime.

Women can be found guilty of rape, as an accomplice. A woman cannot be found guilty of rape if there wasn’t a man present committing the physical act.

Note that the article from 2001 refers to a “handful” of women convicted of rape - presumably a handful over all time, not in 2001. If men who identify as women are recorded as women if they commit rape, then that “handful” of convictions will be seriously skewed.

These are not women’s crimes, and we should resist all attempts to make it seem like women commit rape on a regular basis (rather than, rarely, as an accomplice).

I imagine the crime statistics are used to inform public policy around approaches to crime prevention and treatment.

I believe rape is always penetration with a penis and penetration with anything else is sexual assault.

And the important point is that women are only convicted of a joint enterprise of rape, if a man has committed a rape himself. So there is always a male perpetrator of rape in every rape case, no matter whether it is just that male who is charged/convicted or additional people alongside.

@Snowdancer385

Imagine telling a woman who had her vagina forcefully penetrated by another woman that what happened to her wasn't rape due to some technicality of outdated British laws since it wasn't done with a penis.

Genuinely sociopathic shit.

I am glad then that you appreciate that females raped by males would be also distressed unnecessarily being told they have been raped by another woman. One with a penis.

Good that you recognise that truth is a vital part of assisting traumatised women.

@Justme56

I believe rape is always penetration with a penis and penetration with anything else is sexual assault.

Paraphrased from section 1(1) the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (UK law):

A person commits an offence if he penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of the other person with his penis and the other person does not consent and he does not reasonably believe that the other person consents.

The other offences in the act can be committed by a man or a woman (being assaulted by penetration with another part of his body or something else and sexual touching).

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/section/1

It's absolutely right that being forcibly penetrated with a penis has a separate name from being forcibly penetrated by something else.

Something else can't get you pregnant.

Something else can't give you an STD. With potential complications to fertility/overall health and wellbeing.

Something else doesn't give an orgasm to the individual inserting the something else.

Something else isn't frequently confused with "infidelity" in the minds of some husband's/boyfriends.

I don't know what sort of person would be against keeping the names for crimes specific and concise especially when there's sentencing to consider.

Also, if we didn't have a separate word for being forcibly penetrated by a penis rather than something else we would simply never know what sex the perpetrator was, without introducing something like humiliating genital inspections...

"I thought only a person with penis can commit rape in England. Thank their countries have different rules."

There are countries where marital rape is not legally considered rape.

Does that mean it's not rape for a man to rape his wife in those countries, if it's not in that country's legal definition of rape?

@Snowdancer385

"I thought only a person with penis can commit rape in England. Thank their countries have different rules."

There are countries where marital rape is not legally considered rape.

Does that mean it's not rape for a man to rape his wife in those countries, if it's not in that country's legal definition of rape?

Some countries, eh? That was the case in England and Wales until 1992. And it wasn't simply a different offence, with the same sentencing guidelines, as a woman attacking another woman is.

It is a ridiculous question. Why the hell do you think feminists worked so hard to get the situation changed?

OP do you mean that if we now read stats that say (for example)

‘93% of rapes are committed by men and 7% committed by women’ then we know by default that that 7% are, of course, blokes. Blokes who call themselves women but blokes all the same.

Then we will have clear stats on men who call themselves women and commit rape.

I think maybe that’s what you’re getting at. I see it too. It’s awful isn’t it. But I see it.

I would have said exactly this too, but I've now been wondering exactly how the crime information is used...?
I would imagine it's used to plan essential public services and provision such as police, prisons, judiciary, refuges, victim support etc. I think you'll find more information from The Office for National Statistics - here you are:
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/methodologies/crimeinenglandandwalesqmi

I'm leaving the thread now. You've had some very helpful answers on here so hopefully you've got the information you wanted.

@Snowdancer385

Imagine telling a woman who had her vagina forcefully penetrated by another woman that what happened to her wasn't rape due to some technicality of outdated British laws since it wasn't done with a penis.

Genuinely sociopathic shit.

It's the act of rape that's genuinely sociopathic - forcing a part of your body into another human being and ejaculating inside them.

Weaponised penises involve additional harms of STDs, pregnancy, abortions (or in some countries denied abortions).

To conflate rape with a penis with other forms of penetration is to deny victims redress for very penis-specific harms.

Rape has to be distinct.

Perhaps, if we group all forms of penetrative assault together, we could distinguish between them by what was used: 'Woman raped woman by used her penis' vs 'Woman raped women using dildo'.

The technicalities of who can rape or not are not important.
What is important is that the correct sex is recorded for all suspects and criminals.
If that isn't done then everything that follows is invalid.

@vivariumvivariumsvivaria

I read somewhere, probably twitter, that this is a thorny perjury issue.

If a woman is a victim of rape then she knows very well which sex her attacker is. The court system appears to be happy to FORCE female victims to commit perjury by referring to their attacker as a woman, in order to not hurt the feelings of the (alleged) dirty raping bastard.

The court is forcing women to commit a crime, in order to respect the wishes and preferences of a male person accused of a heinous crime.

Fucking hell.

Exactly. This makes sense to me and is also .why my head is spinning a bit over at all. It's blindingly obvious which sex is committing the crime, if the crime is rape.

@AgathaMystery

OP do you mean that if we now read stats that say (for example)

‘93% of rapes are committed by men and 7% committed by women’ then we know by default that that 7% are, of course, blokes. Blokes who call themselves women but blokes all the same.

Then we will have clear stats on men who call themselves women and commit rape.

I think maybe that’s what you’re getting at. I see it too. It’s awful isn’t it. But I see it.

Yes. But I see now (from this thread) that there may be some cases where the perpetrator might be a biological female via joint enterprise. Even if in every single one of the 7% a biological male actually did the forced penetrating.

Which makes me think there's a need to report rape by joint enterprise in that way; not rape.

Linguini - I replied to that post before seeing your response

"Something else doesn't give an orgasm to the individual inserting the something else."

True and fucking grim.

Some of the twitter replies to JKR are astounding!!!!!!!

@Linguini

It's absolutely right that being forcibly penetrated with a penis has a separate name from being forcibly penetrated by something else.

Something else can't get you pregnant.

Something else can't give you an STD. With potential complications to fertility/overall health and wellbeing.

Something else doesn't give an orgasm to the individual inserting the something else.

Something else isn't frequently confused with "infidelity" in the minds of some husband's/boyfriends.

I don't know what sort of person would be against keeping the names for crimes specific and concise especially when there's sentencing to consider.

Also, if we didn't have a separate word for being forcibly penetrated by a penis rather than something else we would simply never know what sex the perpetrator was, without introducing something like humiliating genital inspections...

Absolutely. But oddly enough tgese ramifications - enormous and potentially life changing for a woman, don't seem to cross the minds of those who consider a woman's body merely the vague site of an orifice to be penetrated by whatever.

It's vital that the sex of the perpetrators is recorded accurately but its still important that rape is defined correctly otherwise people will continue to retort
'Women can rape too'

Convictions of women for rape by joint enterprise are incredibly rare. Hence the case in 2001 that is the only example anyone can actually find in the last 20 years. It is so rare that that I would think it reasonable to discount it as a possibility when looking at the statistics for the perpetrators of rape cases.

@TiddlesTheTiger

The technicalities of who can rape or not are not important. What is important is that the correct sex is recorded for all suspects and criminals. If that isn't done then everything that follows is invalid.

I agree, but I did think that arguably we do know the sex of the rapist because of the definition of rape.

However, the joint enterprise point now makes me think this can be misleading. It seems to me that a case needs to be made for why biological sex needs to be specifically mentioned despite the definition of rape and that it matters in rape (for victims and perpetrators) in a way that is distinct from identity. Biological sex matters to me intensely, but people would probably just dismiss that as me being transphobic.

I still think my thinking is a bit garbled.

I'm just watching "David Baddiel: Social, Media, Anger and Us" on BBC2 now.

Its utterly fascinating and makes me raise questions about the whole subject of identity and politics. EVERYONE concerned about what is going on with TRAs should watch it.

Its a HUGELY important documentary.

Men rape women

Police Scotland say that if a male rapist identifies as a woman then a woman raped a woman

They can fuck right off with that

I would go,to,prison rather than call the rapist a woman

Fuck right off

Don’t overthink this OP

only men can rape women

It’s not a game or what if.

This is happening in Scotland right now

Watching it red