OK. I'll jump right in. Why is rape given special status as a crime?

[MindYaBitness]

So you're saying I can't understand your position unless I've been raped? And I'm saying I don't think I would react that way... feeling that my personhood had been stolen. I wonder why that is assumed. It may happen, but it may happen under other circumstances.

How you think you will react, and how you actually react in the moment & afterward, are two very different things. I thought I was bulletproof. I thought if it happened to me I would fight him during & for justice after. I thought it wouldn't effect me. I was wrong. I cannot fight the hypothetical in your mind. I can only tell you that the reality does not match your imagination.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I will point out that it's one of the few crimes where you have to actually prove you were the victim of it. People just kinda believe mugging victims by default.

With rape there's this added humiliation of having to prove you didn't do anything that provoked the attack. Which is why it's one of the most underrated reported crimes.

I've been mugged, it sucks, it's not an intrusive crime. I didn't have to convince anyone that I wasn't flashing money around to draw the attention of muggers. I wasn't asked if I was walking around with expensive jewelry on display. I wasn't asked if I was sure I didn't misunderstand the situation. Wasn't asked if it was a transactional regret after the fact, either.

Rape is treated at a different level because the people who do it know the burden of proof is on their victim. Not everyone is strong enough to go through the accusations and ridicule that come with making a claim. Some even have family members and friends talk them out of it to avoid destroying the rapists life.

No one does that to a mugging victim. It's just accepted as having happened.

So. It's treated different because the people investigating it treat it differently. They react to it differently. The evidence gathering is a second assault on your body that many can't endure so their rapist gets away with it. Muggings don't require the additional humiliation of having to strip down in front of strangers so photos can be taken and swabs can be collected. The humiliation of knowing everyone who sees those photos are judging whether or not they think you're fuckable enough to be raped. Juries included.

A mugging doesn't leave you laid bare in order to even have a hope of a chance at justice that will likely never come.

When I saw the OPs question right after she posted it, I started a reply like this. But I wasnt sure I'd be able to convey my thoughts clearly. Now I'm glad I didn't post a response, because I'd never have been able to explain it as well as this, and Erozetta's other responses.
Thank you. This and your other comments capture it so well.

 

[EmilyMiller]

When I saw the OPs question right after she posted it, I started a reply like this. But I wasnt sure I'd be able to convey my thoughts clearly. Now I'm glad I didn't post a response, because I'd never have been able to explain it as well as this, and Erozetta's other responses.
Thank you. This and your other comments capture it so well.

Seconded. @Erozetta was brave and spoke publicly for all of us. I wish I was that brave.

Em

 

[Djmac1031]

So you're saying I can't understand your position unless I've been raped? And I'm saying I don't think I would react that way... feeling that my personhood had been stolen. I wonder why that is assumed. It may happen, but it may happen under other circumstances.

Maybe try actually talking to a rape victim instead of making assumptions yourself.

Because it sounds like YOU are assuming "it's not THAT bad, I'm sure I'D get over it easy."

It's called empathy. Try it sometime.

 

[burgwad]

Just to clarify, the intrusive and humiliating exam procedures Erozetta describes, though often traumatic in their own right, are generally only done by trained and caring professionals, and exclusively with the consent of the victim. No rape victim is required by law (that I know of) to submit to a rape kit, but every rape victim is strongly urged to do so (asap) to maximize their chances of achieving justice. In other words, in this instance, the issue is not about "cleaning up law enforcement" procedures.

In the right setting, with due candor, it is healthy to ask what makes rape so uniquely awful. AG31, your admitted (and demonstrated) clumsiness at accurate empathy makes you a tricky student, however, because the best and shortest answers to your question are emotional. Indeed, they have already been given in this thread, but we can't act surprised you aren't receiving them as-is: they are written in a language you have told us you can't read.

Thankfully, while you may not have easy access to empathy, you can write stories. Right? We're all authors here, "hanging out" if I'm not mistaken? So, if the answers you're getting here today feel too tenderhearted or circumstantial for your cerebral, exacting needs, then why not challenge yourself to write a truly, logically, cognitively horrific (even to you) story about rape? That you then burn in a fire, never to see the light of day? Storytelling can provide a handy means to the same end as empathy. Again, I'd urge you never to share this horror story if you did write it, but if you went about the exercise in good faith . . . well, I like to think maybe it could help you start to grok? From your own apathetic, justice-oriented, darkly curious perspective?

EmilyMiller, I apologize. I'm picking up ASD vibes on this one. My slow-down-and-care instincts kick in. But I swear to god if AG31 replies to me with: "That still doesn't answer my question," then I am fully prepared to stonewall all further bullshit.

 

[Winter_Fare]

OK. There's the societal history of not believing rape victims because they're female and it's sexual. That needs tending to.

Actually anyone can find themselves a victim of rape and sexual assault. The issue of women's rights and historical legal standing is way too nuanced and complicated for this thread. And nothing to do with erotica.

Why is rape treated in a special way in environments like Lit.?

Because people deserve to read sexy stories without being horribly triggered. Non con is a huge turn off for the majority of people. All such squick factors are treated as special in environments like lit, with tags, content trigger warnings etc. There are plenty of places to stick stuff that isn't Lit friendly, the site has its own quirks like any other.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Just to clarify, the intrusive and humiliating exam procedures Erozetta describes, though often traumatic in their own right, are generally only done by trained and caring professionals, and exclusively with the consent of the victim. No rape victim is required by law (that I know of) to submit to a rape kit, but every rape victim is strongly urged to do so (asap)

It is good to clarify that part. But being done (usually*) by trained and (hopefully) caring professionals only partially mitigates the potential for retraumatization. These are intrinsically difficult exams to undergo (I mean, just getting a pap smear under ideal circumstances is uncomfortable). And there is no analog to these exams when a person is mugged. Maybe bruises or injuries are photographed, but the victim isn't stripped naked, examined internally, or with as much minute detail.

*I say usually, because especially in rural area (at least in the US) not every locality has a hospital or clinic with staff specifically trained for this. And I say hopefully caring, because, well even trained professionals are humans and can react in suboptimal ways depending on who the victim is (i.e. a male adult, a sex worker, or a person who frequents the Emergency Department for mental health or substance abuse reasons).

And, I'm not even getting into the pregnancy risk for people who can get pregnant, compounded by recent abortion law changes that allow abortion in cases of rape, but only if it's been reported to law enforcement immediately.

 

[Lifestyle66]

I'm female. I've wondered this all my life. Let's compare it to assault during a mugging. Terrifying, for sure. Painful, probably. Would possibly engender lasting fear. But the fact that an act that is engaged in voluntarily all the time had been forced.... Why do we assume that there's life long trauma that is so awful that we restrict its depiction in a world that has a category called BDSM?

I understand that some people suffer ptsd more readily than others. But, again, there's that assault comparison.

OK. There's the societal history of not believing rape victims because they're female and it's sexual. That needs tending to. But the reaction I see doesn't seem limited to cleaning up our law enforcement practices. Why is rape treated in a special way in environments like Lit.? I frankly don't know what the rules are, as it's not my thing. But I've seen lots of posts that isolate rape as "special."

From my perspective it's not special in the world of erotica.

Caveats about me.

I'm not empathetic. I'm sympathetic, and in the old terms of Meyers Briggs, I'm highly motivated by justice. I've spent a lot of resources and energy defending people from this or that, but I don't get inside their heads. Still... there's that assault/rape comparison. What's different except for the behavior of law enforcement?

First, your points here are somewhat incoherent. Try to think this through and present your argument with a little more clarity. So, I'm assuming that you think rape is little different than an assault on anyone.

If so, then ... I believe assault is physically attacking another person. That usually means the assailant somehow picked their victim for a reason (unless the assailant is just a mental case). The victim had something, did something, or said something which triggered the assailant. That being the case, then the victim has SOME control over their future by not having, doing, or saying whatever.

In the case of rape, it's more complex. The victim is violated within their body, something they have which is always a part of them. They can never be without that which the assailant desired.

Then to make it even more complex with rape, there are those who initially consent to the intrusion, ... then recant and claim rape. So, who is the victim in those cases?

In erotica, it's fiction, and anything goes in the mind of the author. So, what's your point?

 

[NoTalentHack]

The other answers are largely accurate, but I don’t think they get to a core part of the awful experience: it recontextualizes something vital to most peoples’ experiences in a way that never entirely goes away.

The anecdote about having to describe your best sexual experience is a great start, but it doesn’t go the whole way. Yes, that is an insight into how the post-sexual assault interview process goes as a way to build empathy by officers. But think about it a little deeper.

Let’s build a hypothetical life. A young woman, maybe a college student. Maybe had a few boyfriends, not a virgin and hasn’t been for a while. Has a generally healthy attitude towards sex and intimacy; probably has a few quirks, like most people, but “normal” for our purposes.

Then she’s raped. Not going to go into the details, but she’s forced, against her will, to have sex by someone.

She had previously had fun conversations with her friends about her sex life; she’s a college kid, right? That’s gone. When she starts to even think about sex, it brings up that awful night.

Maybe she had a boyfriend. If he’s a good guy, he tries to help her through her trauma, but she can barely stand to be touched by him, much less anything more. Even a hug makes her flinch away.

Every guy suddenly seems like a threat, even her friends. ESPECIALLY her friends, if she was raped by one, which is the most common type of rape. She hadn’t seen the threat before, and now she’s hyper vigilant. Most women are more aware of their surroundings than men, because they know intellectually what might happen if they’re not; she has the horrible knowledge of what did happen to her. It’s not a theoretical thing, not making sure she’s safe to prevent it from happening. It’s to prevent it from happening again. She knows sone of it is irrational, but that doesn’t matter. Half the human race makes her fearful. That doesn’t happen with just a mugging.

Seeing herself naked, even, can be a reminder of her rape. Eating disorders and body dysmorphia are common but rarely talked about aftereffects, making people ashamed of and hating their own body for what was done to it.

I could go on and on. This isn’t a guy getting mugged, even violently, then being afraid to go out at night, or deciding he needs to get his concealed carry license. It’s not being more wary of dark alleys or guys who look like their attacker or, in some cases, a new and difficult to shake racial prejudice. This is almost every aspect of a person’s life being changed, from their ability to even think about sex in a healthy way to their relationships to heightened awareness of their surroundings taken almost to the level of paranoia.

PTSD induced by sexual assault will fuck you up in ways that are hard to describe, ways that you can’t really understand without experiencing it. But this short list? It doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface, because it is so all-encompassing.

Trigger warning: some of y’all may want to skip this next paragraph.

Years down the road, even after therapy, even if their rapist is caught—in the unlikely event that happens—it will still affect most victims. I knew a women who could’t enjoy cunnilingus, for example, because her rapist had forced it on her while she was drugged and couldn’t stop him. It used to be one of her favorite sexual activities, but it immediately turned her off now. A couple of girls in the goth scene, when I was younger, went the exact opposite way: they could only orgasm if some aspect of their attack was recreated. One had to be choked, and the other needed to be held down by her wrists. Afterwards, they’d cry and feel so dirty they had to shower, but if they wanted to fully enjoy sex, it was what they needed; it was like a compulsion. Thank god at least one of them eventually got through it with therapy.

Rape recontextualizes everything in a way that most crimes, even the most violent, don’t. Attempted murder, maybe, the kind that leaves a person in the hospital for weeks. I know Paul Dini, the guy behind Batman: The Animated Series, has written about his assault that was so severe it required complete facial reconstructive surgery. I’d buy that completely altering a person’s outlook on a similar magnitude as rape. But simple assault? A mugging? Not just no, but hell no.

 

[Djmac1031]

know Paul Dini, the guy behind Batman: The Animated Series, has written about his assault that was so severe it required complete facial reconstructive surgery.

I recently read his graphic novel telling his story. Heartbreaking, eye opening stuff.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The other answers are largely accurate, but I don’t think they get to a core part of the awful experience: it recontextualizes something vital to most peoples’ experiences in a way that never entirely goes away.

The anecdote about having to describe your best sexual experience is a great start, but it doesn’t go the whole way. Yes, that is an insight into how the post-sexual assault interview process goes as a way to build empathy by officers. But think about it a little deeper.

Let’s build a hypothetical life. A young woman, maybe a college student. Maybe had a few boyfriends, not a virgin and hasn’t been for a while. Has a generally healthy attitude towards sex and intimacy; probably has a few quirks, like most people, but “normal” for our purposes.

Then she’s raped. Not going to go into the details, but she’s forced, against her will, to have sex by someone.

She had previously had fun conversations with her friends about her sex life; she’s a college kid, right? That’s gone. When she starts to even think about sex, it brings up that awful night.

Maybe she had a boyfriend. If he’s a good guy, he tries to help her through her trauma, but she can barely stand to be touched by him, much less anything more. Even a hug makes her flinch away.

Every guy suddenly seems like a threat, even her friends. ESPECIALLY her friends, if she was raped by one, which is the most common type of rape. She hadn’t seen the threat before, and now she’s hyper vigilant. Most women are more aware of their surroundings than men, because they know intellectually what might happen if they’re not; she has the horrible knowledge of what did happen to her. It’s not a theoretical thing, not making sure she’s safe to prevent it from happening. It’s to prevent it from happening again. She knows sone of it is irrational, but that doesn’t matter. Half the human race makes her fearful. That doesn’t happen with just a mugging.

Seeing herself naked, even, can be a reminder of her rape. Eating disorders and body dysmorphia are common but rarely talked about aftereffects, making people ashamed of and hating their own body for what was done to it.

I could go on and on. This isn’t a guy getting mugged, even violently, then being afraid to go out at night, or deciding he needs to get his concealed carry license. It’s not being more wary of dark alleys or guys who look like their attacker or, in some cases, a new and difficult to shake racial prejudice. This is almost every aspect of a person’s life being changed, from their ability to even think about sex in a healthy way to their relationships to heightened awareness of their surroundings taken almost to the level of paranoia.

PTSD induced by sexual assault will fuck you up in ways that are hard to describe, ways that you can’t really understand without experiencing it. But this short list? It doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface, because it is so all-encompassing.

Trigger warning: some of y’all may want to skip this next paragraph.

Years down the road, even after therapy, even if their rapist is caught—in the unlikely event that happens—it will still affect most victims. I knew a women who could’t enjoy cunnilingus, for example, because her rapist had forced it on her while she was drugged and couldn’t stop him. It used to be one of her favorite sexual activities, but it immediately turned her off now. A couple of girls in the goth scene, when I was younger, went the exact opposite way: they could only orgasm if some aspect of their attack was recreated. One had to be choked, and the other needed to be held down by her wrists. Afterwards, they’d cry and feel so dirty they had to shower, but if they wanted to fully enjoy sex, it was what they needed; it was like a compulsion. Thank god at least one of them eventually got through it with therapy.

Rape recontextualizes everything in a way that most crimes, even the most violent, don’t. Attempted murder, maybe, the kind that leaves a person in the hospital for weeks. I know Paul Dini, the guy behind Batman: The Animated Series, has written about his assault that was so severe it required complete facial reconstructive surgery. I’d buy that completely altering a person’s outlook on a similar magnitude as rape. But simple assault? A mugging? Not just no, but hell no.

And - with apologies to @NoTalentHack , who is informed and sensitive about this issue - if a guy can figure this out, why the fuck can’t the OP?

A total failure of imagination / empathy, or something else?

Em

 

[EmilyMiller]

I can only speak for myself. If my words and experience resonate, I'm sorry.

They resonate with a shamefully large proportion of women. And yes that is terribly, terribly sad.

But, I am glad I can put it into words so others feel they don't have to find those words themselves, because it's really fucking difficult to gather thoughts enough to be coherent around this topic sometimes.

Amen!

I won't be commenting on this topic publicly again.

Please don’t, you have done so much already.

Em

 

[Lady2020]

Rape is soul crushing. Then there are posts like yours that are dumb af and triggering af.

 

[YDB95]

Even a hug makes her flinch away.

I can speak directly to that. I was assaulted by my sister when we were teenagers, and since then I don't let women hug me unless I know them very well. Even just brushing up against a stranger's breast by accident can trigger a flashback. As I'm sure you can imagine, it's not much fun pushing away a friend who only wants a hug, especially without explaining why. But that's the kind of thing being raped takes away from you.

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

To add onto the very well elaborated point Erozetta made about the burden falling onto the rape victim... there's not a force in the world strong enough to stop the following thoughts from entering the minds of family and friends: 'what was she doing messing around with that guy anyway?' and, 'I didn't think she was such a slut' or other variations on those themes. Rape may or may not leave physical scars, but undoubtedly, it scars the soul.

As for your comparison to BDSM, here's the key difference - BDSM is consensual. If it isn't, then its rape.

 

[jsmiam]

To AG.. nothing personal, but I suppose the kid gloves can come off based on you having no kid gloves for rape victims…

I’m a skim and scan regular whose eyes selectively and also randomly fall on short posts. Meaning I’ve partly seen some of your other posts in real time, partly I scrolled through your history after this thread.)

Since your arrival you’ve sounded a bit like an out of touch visitor from another planet. I never once looked at your writing and thought “female” (more on this later). This was the first post (to my eye) where you claimed being female that I recall seeing. I do have some doubts.

But the 79 year old part perhaps could explain some of the “wowww, this is the internettttt” tone of your early weeks on our forums here on this planet. (No anti age here. In fact kudos to you for learning the internet by doing and exploring. But generation gaps sometimes explain a lot when it comes to attitudes that don’t age well. There’s some people here you are just going to love, assuming you also have some old fashioned values on pretending there’s no racism or sexism too.)

So let’s translate: that murderer up in Chicago who followed unfortunate senior women home and raped, and murdered, and robbed them, because they were older and much easier targets. Any resonance there, age based? Maybe that’s all you’re capable of identifying with. (Since the 79 year old part sounds like it could be true. The female part, I’m still trying to wrap my interplanetary telescope around that part)

 

[AchtungNight]

I personally encourage people who have been assaulted to get empowered so it doesn’t happen again. Be like Claire in the film Red Eye or Evan Rachel Wood after Rising Phoenix. No longer the person that would let something like that happen to them. And woe to the idiot who tries to make it so.

 

[jsmiam]

… But the 79 year old part …

To those who know me, this post isn’t written with ageism intent. I’m just about old enough to be a target of ageists myself.

And more so, I’m well aware that many of our most prolific and esteemed posters present and past are well on in years.

So, this wasn’t saying age means a person is backward. It was more specifically saying that some backward people are products of their age, environment, lack of empathy, living under a rock, being from other planets, and on and on.

Oh hell. Now I need to explain myself to people from other planets too!

 

[Cagivagurl]

I'm female. I've wondered this all my life. Let's compare it to assault during a mugging. Terrifying, for sure. Painful, probably. Would possibly engender lasting fear. But the fact that an act that is engaged in voluntarily all the time had been forced.... Why do we assume that there's life long trauma that is so awful that we restrict its depiction in a world that has a category called BDSM?

I understand that some people suffer ptsd more readily than others. But, again, there's that assault comparison.

OK. There's the societal history of not believing rape victims because they're female and it's sexual. That needs tending to. But the reaction I see doesn't seem limited to cleaning up our law enforcement practices. Why is rape treated in a special way in environments like Lit.? I frankly don't know what the rules are, as it's not my thing. But I've seen lots of posts that isolate rape as "special."

From my perspective it's not special in the world of erotica.

Caveats about me.

I'm not empathetic. I'm sympathetic, and in the old terms of Meyers Briggs, I'm highly motivated by justice. I've spent a lot of resources and energy defending people from this or that, but I don't get inside their heads. Still... there's that assault/rape comparison. What's different except for the behavior of law enforcement?

Rape is a crime, it is brutal, vicious, dehumanising.
Do you want to know what it's like.
Nose broken, mashed so brutally and filled with blood so you cannot breathe. Your fingers brogen trying to fight of your assailant. Rubs broken from the punch. Jaw groken so gadly it had to be wired shut, and you were fed through a tube for weeks.
Retina detached, loss of sight in one eye.
Three teeth knocked out.
Shoulder dislocated being held down.

It's not a law enforcement thing. It's a society thing. I had my own mother not believe me. She told me I shouldn't report because it would ruin his life. She didn't give a fuck about how it affected me and I was her daughter.

That's why it's treated different. It's the only crime where the victim has to prove they were harmed, often to degrading and humiliating degrees.

It's a crime that just keeps fucking hitting you over and over for years and decades to come because you still have to face the family who looked you in the eye and told you they gave your rapist money because you kicked him out in the middle of the night and they felt bad for him. It doesn't stop attacking you after the rapist is finished.

Rape is a crime, it is brutal, vicious, dehumanising crime that takes away the victims dignity. Takes away their will to live. .
Do you want to know what it's like. Here's an actual account of a rape victim, and I can personally attest to it's fucking accuracy...

Nose broken, mashed so brutally and filled with blood so you cannot breathe.
Your fingers broken trying to fight of your assailant.
Ribs broken from the punch.
Jaw broken so badly it had to be wired shut, and you were fed through a tube for weeks.
Right eye Retina detached, loss of sight.
Three teeth knocked out.
Shoulder dislocated being held down.
Lacerations and bruising so deep it took weeks to heal.
Vagina torn and ripped because there was no lubrication.
Mental trauma. Scared to answer the door at night. Afraid to go out after dark.
Trust nobody. Lose faith in humanity because of people who say. "It's no big deal just get over it."
Failed suicide attempt...
You still think it's no big deal....
Still sound like a titillating little episode?

Cagivagurl

 

[Omenainen]

I personally encourage people who have been assaulted to get empowered so it doesn’t happen again. Be like Claire in the film Red Eye or Evan Rachel Wood after Rising Phoenix. No longer the person that would let something like that happen to them. And woe to the idiot who tries to make it so.

This sidesteps the fact that in general, men are stronger than women so the “won’t let that happen to them” part means what exactly? Reminds me of that quote, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them. There’s no balance there.

I kind of get what you meant but I don’t think it came out right. Unless you meant something imbecile like “not let anything like that happen ever again by never going out of their house.”

 

[K155]

Sex is something special for most people. Something that makes us feel good, something that is (normally) born from connection and feeling; even casual encounters are built on spark, connection and feeling.

Rape is a violation beyond assault because its taking by force, something so personal, so special... there is no choice, no connection, its just a violent attack on one of (if not the most) the most personal things we have as humans.

I'm flabbergasted by your entire message to be honest.

I'd like to know when (if at all) you think it's does deserve a legal distinction beyond assault?
The rape of a virgin? The victim being left with physical long term damage? The victim being left with an std? What about anal rape; is that a step too far?

Serious icks

 

[AchtungNight]

This sidesteps the fact that in general, men are stronger than women so the “won’t let that happen to them” part means what exactly? Reminds me of that quote, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them. There’s no balance there.

I kind of get what you meant but I don’t think it came out right. Unless you meant something imbecile like “not let anything like that happen ever again by never going out of their house.”

I did not mean that last thing. I mean go out and get stronger, overcome your fear by whatever means necessary. Surround yourself with a group of worthy allies when you go out. Train in mixed martial arts and verbal skills to become tougher mentally and physically. Psych yourself into a new mindset.

And start by dropping this whole “men are tougher than women” thing. That’s not true. I come up against certain women- Cynthia Rothrock or Holly Holm, say- it doesn’t matter that I’m a man. I’m going down. Not that I would ever force myself on anyone, if that wasn’t obvious. For me, sex has to be consensual and enjoyable for all parties involved. If it isn’t going to be that way, I’m perfectly happy to drop the idea and be content with fantasy. I don’t try to force the issue.

Rapists are of course the opposite. And we as a society need to stop enabling such people. Refuse to be a victim. Rise up. Empower yourself. You need training dummies? Turn on a video game or go by your local martial arts school and explain the situation. I’m sure you will find plenty of volunteers.

If necessary, start with the video game and work up to the martial arts school. Or maybe write a story where a character based on you has the ability you want. Imagine how it could happen. Then make it so. It’s what worked for me.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Just to clarify, the intrusive and humiliating exam procedures Erozetta describes, though often traumatic in their own right, are generally only done by trained and caring professionals, and exclusively with the consent of the victim. No rape victim is required by law (that I know of) to submit to a rape kit, but every rape victim is strongly urged to do so (asap) to maximize their chances of achieving justice. In other words, in this instance, the issue is not about "cleaning up law enforcement" procedures.

But many rape kits are never even tested, and many cases have emerged where violent offenders were able to keep on victimising people for years after they should've been caught, had those kits been processed.

Cases like this one, for instance: in 1997 a sex worker in MA escaped from a car after being raped at knifepoint and got to an officer who was able to arrest the driver. He was charged, but the case collapsed for "lack of evidence" after the victim was deported and nobody bothered testing the kit.

(The article doesn't say, but... I'd love to believe that her getting deported was just an unlucky coincidence, and not something that happened because she did the "right thing" by going to the police and reporting it.)

In 2002 he raped another sex worker and murdered her. This time the DNA evidence was tested, but there was nothing to match it to, so he walked free for another eight years before he finally had to give a DNA sample after a drug conviction, that one got linked to the 2002 murder, and then they looked back at the 1997 case and finally got off their arses and tested the DNA from that case.

Eight years later, the guy was on probation after being busted for drugs, and had to give a DNA sample, which linked him to the 2002 murder, and after that they finally went back and tested the 1997 kit - though by that time the victim had died.

You say "exclusively with the consent of the victim". But when victims consent to that exam, they're consenting to it being done for the purpose of identifying their attacker. If they're led to believe that it's being done for that reason, and then that kit sits untested in a locker for a couple of decades while the attacker goes on hurting other people... then that's not something they consented to. When that happens, it becomes a second violation on top of the first.

 

[alohadave]

I did not mean that last thing. I mean go out and get stronger, overcome your fear by whatever means necessary. Surround yourself with a group of worthy allies when you go out. Train in mixed martial arts and verbal skills to become tougher mentally and physically. Psych yourself into a new mindset.

And start by dropping this whole “men are tougher than women” thing. That’s not true. I come up against certain women- Cynthia Rothrock or Holly Holm, say- it doesn’t matter that I’m a man. I’m going down. Not that I would ever force myself on anyone, if that wasn’t obvious. For me, sex has to be consensual and enjoyable for all parties involved. If it isn’t going to be that way, I’m perfectly happy to drop the idea and be content with fantasy. I don’t try to force the issue.

Rapists are of course the opposite. And we as a society need to stop enabling such people. Refuse to be a victim. Rise up. Empower yourself. You need training dummies? Turn on a video game or go by your local martial arts school and explain the situation. I’m sure you will find plenty of volunteers.

If necessary, start with the video game and work up to the martial arts school. Or maybe write a story where a character based on you has the ability you want. Imagine how it could happen. Then make it so. It’s what worked for me.

This sounds good, in theory. It's very much how many men would approach to the situation. However, what it does is retraumatizes the person repeatedly. Some people may find this a valid and empowering strategy. Many would find that it keeps the rape in their thoughts constantly.

Life is not a revenge movie. Learning self-defense is good, but one of the things that is driven home is that the first and best response is to run and get away as soon as you can. Fighting back is a last resort.

This isn't about being tougher than your attacker, by the time you are raped, the damage is done. Your psyche is scarred and it is pernicious in ways that you can't even imagine until it happens to you.

I'd argue that having support systems and coping strategies for when you have a (for lack of a better term) flare up is better than pursuing a revenge fantasy for most people.

 

[Bramblethorn]

So you're saying I can't understand your position unless I've been raped? And I'm saying I don't think I would react that way... feeling that my personhood had been stolen. I wonder why that is assumed. It may happen, but it may happen under other circumstances.

It's possible that you wouldn't. Different people process things differently, and I understand there are some rape survivors who report not experiencing it as particularly traumatic.

But for a lot of people, sex is special. It's treated as an irreplaceable expression of love and intimacy, but one that minors need to be protected from witnessing or even reading about. People who would think nothing of paying a professional to cut their hair may be revolted by the idea of paying a professional for sex; a guy who'd share everything he owned with his friend might be violently offended by the idea of sharing his wife (who he doesn't own).

Another factor there, or perhaps another facet of the same factor, is that crimes like mugging usually aren't meant personally; the mugger just wants money, and mugging you just happens to be the easiest way to get it. Rape, OTOH, tends to be intended personally even when the target is a stranger; if it was just about getting an orgasm there are so many easier, safer ways to achieve that.