Women who lie in court

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Worse than murder? torture? locking someone in your basement for 13 years? starving your child, forcing him to drink ammonia, stabbing him in the stomach and forcing him to eat his own vomit*? What about murdering someone by torturing them? Rape is bad, but I can think of a lot things that are worse.

* I don't have an over-active imagination or a sick mind. I'm just grazing the surface of what was done to Dave Pelzer.

 

Saber, I don't think rape laws should be made any less strict or harsh, just their application, especially outside of the courtroom. If you are to be convicted of rape, there should actually be some evidence, something more than just her say-so. On top of that, innocent until proven guilty should be applied in the press as well as in the courtroom.

 

A lot of times there can be no evidence unless the victim is willing/strong enough to have a rape-kit done within 24 hours, which is very difficult in most rape situations (I believe it is somewhere like 85+% of the time that it is aquantaince rape, so it is not a situation that necessarily suggests - "I was just raped, I need to get myself to the police and hospital"). Because of the stigma around being a victim, many people find it difficult to admit what happened and to get help right away, thus removing most physical evidence.

Drew, the reason I said it is the worse crime is because it destroys a person's most important right (in my opinion) - the right to the control and privacy of their own body. I am not sure how to describe it properly, but the reason I think that is the most important is because that is all we truly have control over (or should). Our belongings can be taken away, we can be silenced, we can have our rights to vote, drink, whatever taken away, but at the end of the day, what is most important is not being enslaved or controlled by someone else (which is what rape does - it is someone stealing control of your body).

It is worse than murder because once murder is done, it's over. You are dead, you cannot care. The humiliation, loss of control (which triggers night terrors, panic attacks, etc), and social stigma follow a rape victim forever.

I will cede to your example about that being pretty damn bad. In that case, his treatment is definitely worse - but I think he would be an exception to what I said (and there are exceptions for everything) in the sense that that is a very detailed description of everything that happened. I could give you an equally disturbing vision of rape if you wish.

If you classify that as torture (as compared to general terms like rape, murder, armed robbery, etc)... hmm, I guess torture and rape would be on the same level, using my own definition of why I see rape as the worst.

 

Saber, Dave Pelzer was one of the worst documented cases of child abuse ever recorded, but that abuse lasted for years. Rape is awful, but long term child abuse like that? Most people never recover.

 

And I would argue that most people never recover from rape. It takes them years to be able to even trust a member of the sex that raped them, let alone continue with their social and sexual lives normally.

And, as with your example, I am sure there has been a case of rape in which the woman was imprisoned for years, starved, raped multiple times, and then not only came out of it, but wanted to be her with rapist. Or maybe I just watch too many crime dramas.

Your one example does not make the rule, necessarily. And I agree, that is horrendous, and I obviously do not take that lightly, but I think that for each horrible example for every crime, there is an equally horrible example in another crime. I still believe that overall, the effects of rape on rape victims are worse than the effects on other crime victims (with torture coming in very close behind... physical abuse is one thing, but sexual abuse hurts something on a deeper level of privacy).

 

This is quite true, and very sad, but it isn't reason to violate the rules of evidence or the accused's basic rights.

 

joaquin - I would positive rep you if I could, but evidently, I did so recently and I cannot again.

I largely agree with what joacquin is saying though. Rape is certainly a violent crime, but I don't think it's any worse than aggravated assault. I'm not trying to minimize it, but I just cannot see how it can be worse than being beaten half to death.

 

I agree with Drew that long term abuse, especially of a child, is worse than rape. Yet I'd still consider rape worse than assault. Considering most rapes aren't just a quickie and an empty promise to call you in the morning.

Being beaten half to death is painful, terrifying, a slow recovery, can make you fearful to leave company of friends or the safety of your home, can leave you with long term physical damage, can leave you feeling humiliated, powerless and unable to handle personal anger adequately.

Rape has most of the above alongside a very personal violation, results in feelings of worthlessness, can ruin sexual appetite, romantic relationships, friendship and family communication is also damaged, there are risks for STIs where most are difficult if not impossible to treat perfectly, pregnancy which opens up a whole other can of worms. There are emotional and physical responses that occur during sex - willing or not - leading to confusion, guilt and misery in the aftermath.

The brain is designed to forget pain, you remember that something hurt, but the actual sensation is forgotten so if you experience that pain again it is just as sharp. The brain is quite adequate for remembering emotions, feelings, circumstances, however.

In my personal opinion I'd rather be beaten and left with mainly physical scars than sexually abused and left with mostly mental ones.

 

Rape is pretty horrific, but what joaqin said has a lot of validity. But regardless, women who <snipping> lie about it degrade the suffering that real rape victims have undergone. To me, it is another rape of those real victims. It demeans them as well as totally ruining the life of innocent men.

 

Let me point out related problems.

Men are raped, it just happens less often and may either be done by a few gay people who are as aggressive as a straight rapist. I don't know if I would count someone who is sodomized (with various items rather than by another person seeking that person's own pleasure) as part of torture or not but that is also a possibility.


People lie in court often and aren't punished. The story in this thread shows how some of those lies actually cause others harm. Should lying that causes others pain be treated differently than trying to BS your own way out of an accurately made criminal charge?

Relating to that there are many workplaces that have no contact policies that pop up when one worker complains to the higher ups that ___ did something to him or her. In these situations the accused is actually, treated with a guilty until proven innocent attitude.

Not that the other person usual looses his or her job but the accused is often told to have no contact with the accuser for the rest of the time he/she works at that company and isn't allowed to talk about the situation with fellow employees. The thinking for that last part may mean that the accused cannot harass the accuser via 3rd party but it also means that the accused has little in the way of seeking sympathy from a or seeing if the what the accuser claimed is at all rational.

I wanted to point out that I've a generally very friendly woman who mentioned that another woman activated such a policy against her in the workplace (I didn't work for that company at the time so she could mention this to me without many restrictions). I wasn't there but the woman seems friendly so often I have a hard time believing it. But even if I didn't I can see this policy seems to provide little in the way of facing an accuser/accusation. Granted harassment can be hard to prove (unless someone has a recorder running at just the right time) so companies may want to be overly aggressive to compensate for the unprovable but true situations where it happens. But that opens the door to people abusing the policy just to give coworkers they don't get along with a headache and one that, at least in the workplace, they are required to be silent about and put up with.

 

Not to get off topic but ... WHAT? Rape is about power, control and violence. It has very little to do with sexuality or even sexual preferences. Men are not raped by "gay rapists" -- men are raped by other violent men who use rape to show dominance.

 

Typically, though, rapists target their sexual preference. It's not absolute, but it is vastly more common.

 

I disagree with that to an extent. As NOG pointed out people target the group of people they prefer having sex with and if sex wasn't an issue at all then the "rapist" arguably could be satisfied physically beating or pushing the other person down and holding him/her there to prove physical power and/or dominance through that way. Rape, or forced sex, involves sex and/or sex acts.

To say rape is just about control (though I agree that can be in the mix) I think is misleading and can bring people to the inaccurate conclusion that neither sexuality nor (and most strikingly from just looking at what you said) sexual preferences matter.

Sexual preferences seem to matter quite a bit according to my understanding-not being a rapist but hearing & seeing the movie presentations thereof and a couple of people describing what happened to them as victims.

 

This is a serious question... what are the Necros and the Beastiality crazies thinking of then? Power and Control or Sexual preference? I think preference. Are they so different than rapists?

 

I wonder if that (and maybe some of the rapes that happen) is a crossing of the wires so to speak.

Somehow feelings that should simply be about sex get mixed up with a bunch of other things that don't belong.... crossed cravings or something?

But rape, as I see it, is about forcing people to do sex when they don't want to.

A guy has sex with a girl who doesn't want to. Rape.

A guy really beats up (putting in victim in the hospital) someone and has sex with him or her when he/she doesn't want to. Rape.

A couple engage in bondage or master/slave style sex acts (I don't feel the attraction to this but I guess some people do). Even if they involve pain or what a lot of people who think of as embarrassing/humiliation but both people agreed to it. Not Rape. (Though like I said it isn't my cup of tea.)

 

Rape is primarily about control. Something the human psche equivilates is sex and success/power. It is often documented in psychology as interpretations of vocalised desires and in interpretation of dreams. (As fluffy as that sounds)

While sexuality *does* play a part in it, it is not necessarily the fulcrum in deciding upon a victim or target. Gender does not always play a part in sex crimes - particularly if it's a serial criminal or a 'deserved crime'. Rape is rarely about voicing surpressed sexual urges.

One incident that springs to mind is a heterosexual man who beat up and raped another man who didn't cease hitting on his fiancé. The victim of the crime was getting forceful with the woman and her fiancé flipped and 'put him in his place'.

In the case of serial rapists the victims are often selected for a common factor of what they represent to the criminal, habits of an ex partner, a short temper like an abusive parent, the same hairstyle and dress sense of an abandoning spouse.

A rapist may give false indication of their sexuality to gain trust with someone they target and try to get closer to, but generally that would be dependant on whether the criminals intent is to be in control (more forthright) or to see their target humiliated and ruined (more deceptive and patient)

There is also a factor of desperation, in prisons for example heterosexuals may perform same-sex rape to quench desire and assertain a position in the heirarchy that relieves the prospect of the same thing happening to them further along the line. There are cases where homosexuals will attempt sex with a partner of the opposite sex to prove their own sexuality or to deny it, in extreme stress it's plausible they would force an unwilling partner into the act, probably in denial though.

 

I knew the prison example would come up, but I don't really think it's valid. The prison environment radically changes a whole host of behavioral and social factors. I think it is really a case that should be considered in a category by itself.

Something you brought up, though, the different types of motives (control vs humiliation vs psychological issues) is very important to consider. The 'crossed wires' idea fits the 'control' form of rape, and is almost only seen in men (men associate sex with success and power a lot more than women do). Humiliation, on the other hand, is seen in most cases where women (either as rapist or instigator) are involved in the rape (women associate sex with social standing a lot more than men do). Of course, psychological issues can pop up with anyone, and can target anyone.

Since men commit most rapes, the control issue is prominent. Here, power and sexuality are linked. In other cases, though, control and power may not even come into the equation.

 

One rarely seen point in discussions like this is what lead to or caused the rape in the first place?

In my not so humble opinion, there's a world of difference between
A) getting assaulted by a stranger clear out of the blue sky and
B) abusing one's sexual charisma to make someone else squirm of desire while having zero intention of delivering and THEN acting surprised when the supposed 'victim' of this torture turns into a monster and actually rapes you.

As horrible as rape is, I actually have somewhere between zero and nil compassion for the supposed rape 'victim' in case B. They effin' brought it on themselves.

Now, before you lash at me, let me clarify.

I'm fully aware that neither case is the norm, and the process of acquiring solid proof that would hold water in court for either is left at the whims of chance, timing and less than perfect lie detectors and/or lack of total honesty. I'm also painfully aware of the fact that "gee, did you see how scantly dressed/drunk/sexually explicit the victim was -- the victim was ASKING to be raped" has been used as means to discredit rape victims in the past.

However, that accusation doesn't consider the intent of said acts. I concur that in the vast majority of the rape cases, the victim never had such intent (ie. really, truly wanting for to be raped) and therefore shouldn't be assumed to have had one.

But using sex (or perhaps more accurately, sexual drive) as means of torture against another human being is just asking for trouble. While I still don't condone the use of rape by the victim of this torture as means of punishment, there shall be no compassion for the "poor rape victim" (a.k.a the torturer) either.

 

To be quite frank, a man who gets his expectations up so easily deserves a lesson in what we call "real life". At least he won't make the same mistake again. His own unrealistic expectations are no form of excuse to rape or even a mitigating circumstance in my honest opinion.

 

Yes, the slippery slopes of unrealistic expectations vs. by-the-book torture. Note that I never assumed that it would be easy - or in most cases, even possible - to tell the difference. Heck, even the persons involved may not be fully aware of the situation.

I'm just pointing out that it's possible to conjure up a scenario where the blame can't be ONLY put on the rapist. And that such a scenario isn't all that far-fetched either, albeit rare.

Edit: Although fictional, the "treatment" given by the character Madame X in the comic strip "Sexy Losers" (yes, www and com) could be used as a starting point.