Why rape is unique and why should it be a distinct crime from battery?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Trooper

Trooper

Secular Sanity
Valued Senior Member
Does anyone agree with the woman in the following video, who believes that the best way to overcome the inequality of women is to assert a parallel between rape and nonsexual violent assaults, if not, why?

Cluelusshusbund just linked a video on street harassment. At the end of the following video, the question of punishment for verbal sexual harassment and freedom of speech is addressed. Should verbal sexual harassment be punishable? What are your thoughts?

 
Trooper said:
Cluelusshusbund just linked a video on street harassment. At the end of the following video, the question of punishment for verbal sexual harassment and freedom of speech is addressed. Should verbal sexual harassment be punishable?
Click to expand...
Yes, and fortunately we have laws against assault for just that purpose. ("Assault" means an "act of creating apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with a person" - and most verbal sexual harassment fits that description quite well.)
 
I don't think you can get pregnant from a non-sexual violent assault.
 
billvon said:
Yes, and fortunately we have laws against assault for just that purpose. ("Assault" means an "act of creating apprehension of an imminent harmful or offensive contact with a person" - and most verbal sexual harassment fits that description quite well.)
Click to expand...

Yes, but is catcalling on its own illegal?

The info on street harassment that this link is intended to address goes past “Hey, baby”, “Damn!”, or “Hey, beautiful”.

Street Harassment and the Law


Why does rape have the tendency to affect a person's sense of identity? Is the psychological trauma intensified by the social stigma?
 
Last edited:
In response to the OP, I expect egregious verbal harassment is indeed actionable, and should be.
 
Trooper said:
Yes, but is catcalling on its own illegal?

The info on street harassment that this link is intended to address goes past “Hey, baby”, “Damn!”, or “Hey, beautiful”.

Street Harassment and the Law
Click to expand...
its been my understanding that in cases of harrassment that intent doesn't matter its irrelevant. what matters is how the victim views it.


Why does rape have the tendency to affect a person's sense of identity?
Click to expand...
um cause it takes away your humanity. You get treated as little more than a thing to be acted upon.
Is the psychological trauma intensified by the social stigma?
Click to expand...
yes. that's where a lot of the harm comes from.


don't take this the wrong way. but if you seriously need to ask those second two questions you probably shouldn't discuss rape. it suggests a naivety that will get you in trouble. I know for a fact that their are a handful of people here who have been the victims of sexual assualts. you do not want to go opening up those wounds.
 
Last edited:
Well I think chasing after a girl and continually bleating "Girl - girl why don't you talk to me - you're so sexy" or whatever those two idiots were saying in that video that's going around should earn a ticket at least. Not a bloody felony conviction, and I suppose one wouldn't call up a lawyer necessarily but in fact I'm reasonably sure it's a misdemeanor to follow someone and perv on them for 2-5 minutes. I don't agree with the brief catcall on the street - it is offensive and improper - yet wouldn't arrest a person for it.
 
I'd think that women should just turn around to their abuser and ask them do they do that with their wife or GF? Then tell them to shut the hell up and walk away. Standing up for yourself when anyone defames you is one of the best things that anyone can do, male or female. There are some women, not allot, that like the attention they get when men make comments to them as they pass by as long as those comments are appealing and not harmful.
 
Last edited:
@ Geoffp
I have the feelin that those guys in the street harrassment video knew the rules an didnt brake any of 'em... ie... as long as they ant vulgar... dont shout ther "bleets"... make threats or impede the womans movment... they will receive no "tickets"... an keepin those thangs in mind... walkin along side of a woman woud not be brakin the law.!!!

Insted of openin a can of worms to try an force those guys to leave women alone... cops... the community... let it go as is.!!!
 
Trooper said:
Yes, but is catcalling on its own illegal?

The info on street harassment that this link is intended to address goes past “Hey, baby”, “Damn!”, or “Hey, beautiful”.

Street Harassment and the Law

Why does rape have the tendency to affect a person's sense of identity? Is the psychological trauma intensified by the social stigma?
Click to expand...
Why confine this debate to rape?
A small man faces the same sort of thing every day of his life. Men instinctively have to give way walking down the street to someone who is ostensibly more powerful. The assessment of another man takes half a second, and so does the instinct to give way or not.
It's a fact of life. Perhaps we should legislate to it.

I'm actually wondering if a man caught up in a fight and being badly beaten in front of his girlfriend suffers any less actual emotional trauma. How much of rape trauma is only that because we have made it so?


Also, this video either was or could have been manufactured to a certain viewpoint.
In the face of humanities tendency to advocate, it becomes so utterly useless.

I know. I'm a terribly cynical person.
 
In other words, as a response to the OP:
Yes. I agree completely. There is an absolute parallel, and there should be no legal separation at all.

But we walk a very dangerous line when we begin to legislate to what another might deem as being merely insulting.
There, I have a problem. Unfortunately, it is not one with any reasonable solution.
 
All rape is battery... not all battery is rape.

Seems a pretty simple distinction to me -
quoting Wikipedia for simplicity's sake - In the United States, criminal battery, or simply battery, is the use of force against another, resulting in harmful, offensive or sexual contact
Examples of this type of sexual battery include:
  • patting a person’s buttocks
  • grabbing or fondling a woman’s breast
  • touching the victim’s genital area
  • forcing the victim to touch an intimate part of the offender’s body, or
  • even forcing a kiss on the mouth.

Where as, typically, rape involves SOME form of penetration - vaginal, anal, or otherwise (Fellatio and Cunnilingus fall into this as well depending on the interpretation of the law)

Obviously, you cannot really rape someone without "using force against another" and without "resulting in harmful, offensive, or sexual contact".
 
cosmictraveler said:
I'd think that women should just turn around to their abuser and ask them do they do that with their wife or GF? Then tell them to shut the hell up and walk away. Standing up for yourself when anyone defames you is one of the best things that anyone can do, male or female. There are some women, not allot, that like the attention they get when men make comments to them as they pass by as long as those comments are appealing and not harmful.
Click to expand...

I agree that there is a supportive meme in taking a stance for yourself. The thing is that this does in a way speak to Tiassa's poorly-pursued complaint earlier: "Infinite Protection Advocacy". The woman is left with the burden of containment again. Instead, we should be addressing corrections more to the males doing the catcalling. Catcalling doesn't require litigation generally, but in extreme cases a ticket would be appropriate. Better still, social pressure or training on men to refrain from this kind of thing.

The latter would be against considerable chauvinist counter-reaction, I'm sure. If the choice of confrontation is with the woman, then so should be the choice of litigation, presumably.

cluelesshusband said:
@ Geoffp
I have the feelin that those guys in the street harrassment video knew the rules an didnt brake any of 'em... ie... as long as they ant vulgar... dont shout ther "bleets"... make threats or impede the womans movment... they will receive no "tickets"... an keepin those thangs in mind... walkin along side of a woman woud not be brakin the law.!!!

Insted of openin a can of worms to try an force those guys to leave women alone... cops... the community... let it go as is.!!!
Click to expand...

Your argument strikes me as 'constitutionally grounded' (the impeding movement thing) but harassment doesn't require that one has to physically interpose oneself. I mean, five minutes of that crap - I assume everyone has seen that other video - is much too much.
 
The Marquis said:
In other words, as a response to the OP:
Yes. I agree completely. There is an absolute parallel, and there should be no legal separation at all.

But we walk a very dangerous line when we begin to legislate to what another might deem as being merely insulting.
There, I have a problem. Unfortunately, it is not one with any reasonable solution.
Click to expand...

So you see this as a quantitative difference rather than an absolute difference in kind?
 
Trooper said:
Are you sure?
Click to expand...

Well, lets see:

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, January 6, 2012
Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Revisions to the Uniform Crime Report’s Definition of Rape
Attorney General Eric Holder today announced revisions to the Uniform Crime Report’s (UCR) definition of rape, which will lead to a more comprehensive statistical reporting of rape nationwide. The new definition is more inclusive, better reflects state criminal codes and focuses on the various forms of sexual penetration understood to be rape. The new definition of rape is: “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” The definition is used by the FBI to collect information from local law enforcement agencies about reported rapes.
Click to expand...

So... yeah, that definition would seem to imply some sort of force being used, and unless you know someone who particularly ENJOYS being raped, I would classify it as harmful and/or offensive.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top