Tag Archives | Rape

An Eye for an Eye? Jerry Sandusky, Male Survivors, and Prison Rape

By Good German on October 17, 2012 in News 44

Trigger Warning: The following article has content that could prove triggering for survivors of sexual violence.

As the verdict was handed down that Jerry Sandusky, convicted child rapist and former Penn State football coach, would spend the rest of his life in prison, the twitterverse exploded!

(it’s notable that this came from a widely-followed sports reporter)

Now, I have to admit. While I consider myself on the road to understanding peace through pacifism, few things make me want to inflict violence on another more than violence against children, particularly sexual violence. It robs children of their innocence and scars them for life; any person that would inflict such violence on a child is seriously disturbed, and they deserve punishment.

But is wishing rape upon those who have committed atrocities the measure by which we should understand justice?

One of the great failures of our so-called “justice” system is that there are virtually no resources or effort put toward healing and rehabilitation. In short, restorative justice is all but absent from the U.S.

… Read the rest

Woman Shoots and Beheads Serial Rapist

By Jin_TheNinja on September 5, 2012 in News 91

Picture: Caravaggio (PD)

Via Daily Bhaksar

Yalvac (Turkey): A woman heavily pregnant with the child of her rapist, killed the perpetrator and left his severed head in the local village square, Sun reported.

The woman five-months pregnant with the rapist’s child has been pleading with authorities to let her have an abortion—although the law prohibits any woman beyond ten-weeks pregnant from taking such an action.

Sun reported that when police arrested her in the south-western village of Yalvac she told them that the head was of the one who ‘toyed with her honour.’

Womens’ groups in Turkey have praised the mother of two as a heroine after it emerged she was being blackmailed by her attacker.

Read more at Daily Bhaksar.… Read the rest

Male Soldier Writes About Surviving Female-on-Male Rape

By Good German on September 4, 2012 in News 25

Via My Duty to Speak:

Richard, United States Army

When you think of a Predator or Military Sexual Trauma (MST) you think women being raped by men. When you think of Male who has Military Sexual Trauma you think male on male rape. I am a Survivor I have Military Sexual Trauma (MST) PTST & no male has ever touched me.

I was an Active Duty Liaison during this time period. It was my supervisor who was a female “Civilian Employee” during the week and during the weekends she was the First Sergeant. She was in a position as a civilian that she used her higher rank & position to get what she wanted. Then the threats came in… but I had to report it after it took the best of me. Once I reported it to the military they didn’t remove her or change her position. If the role was reversed I as a male would have been moved that day no questions asked.

… Read the rest

What’s Wrong With Todd Akin and His Critics: Moral Coherence

By Good German on September 2, 2012 in News 20

Picture: US Congress (PD)

Do you accept or dismiss information depending upon your emotional reaction to it? Brian D. Earp writes at Oxford’s Practical Ethics blog:

Should abortions be allowed in the case of rape? Republican Todd Akin—running for the U.S. Senate from the state of Missouri—thinks not. His reasoning is as follows:

From what I understand from doctors, [pregnancy resulting from rape is] really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment. But the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.

There appears to be no scientific basis for the claim that the trauma of forced intercourse can interrupt ovulation or in any other way prevent a pregnancy; indeed pregnancy is just as likely after rape as after consensual sex, according to the evidence I have seen.

… Read the rest

Are Male Rape Victims Oppressed?

By Good German on August 13, 2012 in News 12

Picture: Florida Depart of Corrections (PD)

For the record, I don’t believe the ubiquity of prison rape humor disproves the existence of rape culture, but rather proves it. Zek J. Evets writes at the Good Men Project:

I knew a teenage girl who refused to believe men were capable of being raped by a woman. When I told her the stories about Mary Kay Letourneau, Debra Lafave, and certain Zimbabwean women who even went as far as to steal semen in addition to gang-raping men. She said to me, “that doesn’t count.”

I’ve known grown men who are more likely to believe in UFOs or Bigfoot than some woman who says she was raped. (For the record: UFOs and Bigfoot are real.) They laugh at these women’s stories and slap each others’ backs while calling themselves “good Christian folk”.

Unlike almost any other crime, rape is one in which our private notions of gender, sexuality, and personal responsibility become politicized to the point of oppression.

… Read the rest

e-Patriarchy: Does the Internet Promote Misogynistic Behaviour?

By Jin_TheNinja on August 10, 2012 in News 23

A Black Man’s View of Schroedinger’s Rapist

By Good German on February 2, 2012 in News 14

Crommunist writes at the Freethought Blogs:

This morning I made a reference to the fact that men are often assumed to be potential rapists as an example of how sexism negatively affects men as well as women. The argument, commonly referred to as “Schroedinger’s Rapist”, goes something like this: because you can’t know for sure if the stranger approaching you in a dark alley or other unsafe place is a rapist or not, it is generally a good idea to be on your guard. Men can enhance their interactions with women by being aware of this mindset, and adjusting their own behaviour accordingly.

I have often heard from people making an anti-feminist argument that Schroedinger’s Rapist is profoundly sexist and unfair. After all, most men do not rape – why should every man be treated like a rapist? Isn’t that discrimination? How can you claim to be opposed to sexism, yet promote a fundamentally sexually prejudicial idea?

… Read the rest

FBI Definition Of Rape To Include Male Victims

By Good German on January 7, 2012 in News 47

The Associated Press reports (via the Washington Post):

The Obama administration on Friday expanded the FBI’s more than eight-decade-old definition of rape to count men as victims for the first time and to drop the requirement that victims must have physically resisted their attackers.

The new definition will increase the number of people counted as rape victims in FBI statistics, but it will not change federal or state laws or alter charges or prosecutions. It’s an important shift because lawmakers and policymakers use crime statistics to allocate money and other resources for prevention and victim assistance.

The White House said the change was not motivated by the recent Penn State child sex-abuse scandal. Indeed, the expanded definition has been long awaited as many states and research groups made similar changes in their definitions of rape over recent decades.

Senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett called the change a “very, very important step.” The issue got top-level White House attention starting last July, when Vice President Joe Biden raised it at a Cabinet meeting.

… Read the rest

Are These Evolution’s Future Sluts?

By moezilla on August 14, 2011 in News 191

SlutWalk protest in Toronto, 3 April 2011. Photo: Anton Bielousov (CC).

Violet Blue explains why the new SlutWalk protests are “a significant tipping point in cultural evolution” — and she’s serious. “Yes: I think scantily clad girls marching in the streets around the world are agents of change for our species.”

It started in April when a Toronto cop said that to stay safe from rape, women “should avoid dressing like sluts”. Soon “my clothes are not my consent” protests erupted, and the event “had an international identity within a few months,” representing “a huge reclamation and restatement about boundaries and women’s bodies.”

Now sex workers, young exhibitionists, high-heel feminists and random pissed-off women are marching “for the right to dress as they like while having their boundaries respected,” and Violet calls them the true punk rockers — the disruptors. “They’re the ones with the brass ovaries enough to dress like sluts and tell the world to STFU about what they should, or shouldn’t do, with their sexiness.”

“Maybe that’s why its critics are panicking and handwringing as if Invaders From Mars have come out of a time machine from the future in heels and hose, reminding everyone that their face is up here!”… Read the rest

Iranian Activists Accuse Government of Handing Out Condoms So Political Prisoners Can Be Raped

By Good German on July 18, 2011 in News 28

Photo: Ehsan Iran (CC)

“If the inmate is not powerful enough or guards would not take care of him, he will be certainly raped. Prison guards ignore those who are seen with condoms simply because they were given out to them by the guards at first place” … Saeed Kamali Dehghan reports in the Guardian:

Prison guards in Iran are giving condoms to criminals and encouraging them to systematically rape young opposition activists locked up with them, according to accounts from inside the country’s jail system.

A series of dramatic letters written by prisoners and families of imprisoned activists allege that authorities are intentionally facilitating mass rape and using it as a form of punishment.

Mehdi Mahmoudian, an outspoken member of Iran’s Participation Front, a reformist political party, is among those prisoners who have succeeded in smuggling out letters revealing the extent of rape inside some of the most notorious prisons.

… Read the rest

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