It has always deeply bothered me that so much of the dialogue about rape charges, including those charge against former IMF head Strauss-Kahn, deals with the credibility of the accuser. In murder charges, we do not care about the credibility of the victim—if there is a body, whether the body of a prostitute or of a child or of an upstanding citizen, and it looks like there was foul play, there is a murder investigation. The same standard goes for theft—it does not matter if the theft occurred in a pawn shop or convenience store in a seedy part of town or involved embezzlement in a Fortune 500 company—theft is theft; if you take what does not belong to you, you get charged with theft. No one cares much about the credibility of victim of such a crime.
That standard is not applied when it comes to the crime of rape, though. Rape is a terrible crime, deeply traumatic, causing years (and decades) of damage. Accusations of rape are almost always made by females because very few men would admit to being overpowered by a woman, and because others would consider an accusation of rape by a male against another male to be an admission of homosexuality. But rape accusations made against powerful men are almost never pursued all the way to completion because of questions about the credibility of a rape victim. To even accuse someone of rape opens someone up to a host of unfriendly examination of one’s sexual life, so one would not make such accusations lightly. Would not the fact that someone was willing to undergo such scrutiny for such a risky conviction of a crime be a sign in someone’s favor, and the willingness to stand against powerful men a sign of someone’s genuineness? Am I the only one who thinks this?
Let us think about the kind of people who are most likely to make rape accusations. Was not the rape victim in the Duke Lacrosse scandal a “private dancer?” Was not the accuser in the Strauss-Kahn case a maid (and there was another accusation from a novelist)? What is the connection between these accusations—in both cases accusations were made against someone who was not used to hearing no from someone who was in a vulnerable position. A private dancer is hired to provide a show for some oversexed young adults who think themselves to be privileged and extremely desirable, with the rule that they can look but they can’t tough. But who tells a bunch of horny athletes that they can’t touch when they feel themselves entitled to whatever you want and you are already hired for their sensual gratification? Would not your very profession as an exotic dancer make you lack credibility as a victim while simultaneously make you more vulnerable to rape happening in the first place? And would not a maid be extremely vulnerable to the unwanted advances of an employer, and unlikely to make an accusation unless there was some kind of other “work problem as well” that might allow her to be painted as a disgruntled and vengeful former employee? Clearly such a “spin” would be inherent in such situations.
From where I stand, almost none of the rape accusations I hear of seem beyond belief to me. Is it ridiculous to believe that some privileged and wealthy athletes who think they are God’s gift to the earth would exceed boundaries with a woman they hired as an exotic dancer because they couldn’t believe that no means no? Not at all. Do I believe it outrageous that someone who regularly raped nations for a living as the head of the IMF when such nations were prostrate and looking for loans would have any qualms about raping a vulnerable maid? No, I would think it entirely within the bounds of reason and possibility. In fact, I would venture to say that my initial response would be to take absolutely seriously any accusation of rape I heard, knowing just how difficult it is for someone to accuse someone else of the crime and open themselves up to accusations of being whores or sluts. After all, is not accusing someone else of rape or sexual abuse an admission of improper sexuality. Of course it was consensual. Who wouldn’t want to sleep with the IMF head/member of the Duke lacrosse team/Quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and so on.
It deeply bothers me that rape is judged to be a sex crime, and that people are all concerned with the reputation of the accused and not at all concerned with making nasty slurs about the reputation of the accuser. As anyone who has studied the problem of rape (or sexual abuse) would know, rape and abuse are not crimes of sexuality as much as they are crimes about power. They are crimes about the strong overpowering the weak to fulfill their own selfish desires, without a respect or a concern for the feeling or wishes of their victims, who are often too young to fight back, drugged up enough not to be able to resist, or vulnerable enough where they might give in to preserve their jobs but yet fierce enough to make charges later to protect their dignity. Rape victims are routinely victimized twice over—first by their rapist and then by a justice system (and its attendant media coverage) that is far more concerned with the reputation of the big and powerful than it is with justice due to maids and exotic dancers and young women who drink too much at parties, or easily forgotten and helpless small children.
It is the power aspect of rape that is most easily forgotten or intentionally misunderstood. We should expect that a highly disproportionate amount of accused rapists be the powerful, for it is the powerful that are in the best position to abuse power. Whether it is a drunk CEO onboard a plane groping a flight attendent or an athlete going after an exotic dancer or drunk coed, or parents (or adult relatives) abusing small children, or employers taking advantage of vulnerable employees, we have people in one position used to having every wish fulfilled and unable to effectively deal with reluctance or resistance except through threats and force, and people in another position unable to effectively defend themselves either from the initial attack or from the attacks on their reputation by their abusers afterward. Who is to be a fair audience for such accusations when our sympathies are usually with the powerful whom we secretly aspire to become ourselves.
Who wants to give credence to accusations of rape when we have to stare within ourselves and face our own reluctance to let the wishes of others stop our own plans or ambitions. When our dreams and fantasies are about laying waste to our enemies, leaving them unable to resist our will in the boardroom, on the gridiron, or in the playground, are we not potential rapists ourselves in the bedroom? Do we refuse to see the likelihood of rape such cases as appear on television because we do not want to admit to ourselves that the same beast lies within us waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting victim?
And it is that group of double standards that most troubles me about the issue of rape charge and how it is that rape victims appear to be the ones on trial rather than the accused rapists themselves, a show of how we continually seek to victimize the same vulnerable people over and over again rather than face the often unpleasant power relationships in the basis of our own societies. Should we not examine ourselves before we point the finger at others? Should we not be more aware of just how brave someone has to be to seek justice against the powerful and wicked rulers of this age? We should not be in a rush to slander them so readily, but rather to honor them for exposing the corruption that often finds its way into high places, and the lures of power that we so easily fall prey to as flawed human beings to whom self-discipline and self-examination are so foreign so often.
Edge Induced Cohesion 
A few quibbles.
The Duke lacrosse team party hired strippers as an afterthought. Many of the players, including two of those ultimately falsely accused, did not even know there were going to be strippers until they were asked to contribute to their fees. Some twenty Duke groups hired strippers that year (it is not all that uncommon in college–check the ads) including the Duke basketball team and a sorority. (No opprobrium appears to have fallen on these other groups.)
To describe the team members as “some privileged and wealthy athletes who think they are God’s gift to the earth” is to fall into a stereotype. The father of one of those accused was raised by a black family; the father of another accused was so poor he had to borrow money for a cheap engagement ring; when he later made his fortune, he used part of it to build a hospital in Africa and contributed large sums to black education. Many of the team members came from middle class families, and were on scholarship.
Their accuser had made a previous claim of gang rape some years before. She also had claimed a previous husband had tried to drag her into the woods and kill her (no evidence); that her grandmother had been murdered by being pushed down stairs (not true). In March 2006 as she was about to be committed to a detox center, she claimed to have been gang raped for a second time, which got her transferred immediately to a hospital instead. Her statements (to her co-dancer) “Go ahead, put marks on me, that’s what I want”; and (to co-workers) “I’m going to be getting some money from the Duke boys”, suggests a motive for continuing to press her case.
The accuser in the Scottsboro case had the same initial aim–to escape police prosecution. She also had a history of lying–but society discounted her past in order to be able to confirm its own prejudices. Human nature doesn’t change; and unfortunately Durham now has the distinction of having repeated the Scottsboro railroad-to-injustice–so perfectly that the cases could nearly be twins, with only the colors reversed.
sincerely,
R. B. Parrish
(author, “The Duke Lacrosse Case: A Documentary History and Analysis of the Modern
Scottsboro”)
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But you fall into exactly the trap I commented on and show a perfect example of the difficulties of anyone making a rape accusation of any kind–the fact that the obvious defense of a person accused of a rape is to go on the attack and libel and slander the reputation of the accuser. The whole Durham problem right now where some convicted rapist is going after the current DA is largely an attack on the relationship between the accused girl’s family and the convicted rapist. The strategy is defend yourself by attacking the victim. It’s not the racial identity of the victims or perpetrators that interests me as much as the power differential. I would personally think that the other sports groups that hired strippers deserve plenty of blame themselves–it’s the larger system I’m interested in, and athletes in general have a fair amount of a sense of entitlement when it comes to the gratification of their urges, a sense of entitlement encouraged by parents, coaches, and academic institutions. Who cares if a few young women get slandered and libeled along the way–certainly not you.
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“It’s not the racial identity of the victims or perpetrators that interests me as much as the power differential.”
As Tolstoy said, nobody knows the power of the state until you feel the hand on your shoulder and you are told, “You are under arrest”. The biggest “power differential” is between the defendant and the state–the state which has unlimited resources, and can manipulate the media with press conferences and perp walks to create an image of guilt even before a trial.
“and athletes in general have a fair amount of a sense of entitlement when it comes to the gratification of their urges”
Was that true of the specific individuals who were accused in the lacrosse case? Should it automatically be assumed to be true even before any facts are known? (In Scottsboro, what would society have presumed must have been true about nine black men who rode a train car with two white women?)
“The whole Durham problem right now where some convicted rapist is going after the current DA is largely an attack on the relationship between the accused girl’s family and the convicted rapist.”
It’s also a case where the DA withheld evidence from the defense, and lied in court about
other evidence. (Nifong was not, as described, a unique example of a ‘rogue’ prosecutor; that sort of thing has been going on in Durham for decades.) If the DA and the police aren’t going to play by the rules, then innocents are going to be convicted (and in Durham, have been).
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These are systemic problems that you mention (as is the Scottsboro case, it might be added). I have been very fortunate up to this point in my life not to have faced the power of the state against me (and in some respects I consider that only by the grace of God). Indeed, in an adversarial system of justice, it would appear as if both the defense and the prosecution have a vested interest in withholding evidence. A DA (especially, but not only an elected one) gets votes and promotions based on convictions. I am not suggesting in any way that I endorse unjust prosecutions, but rather that the solution to such a state is not to attack the victims in such cases, but rather to speak the truth.
In some cases, a genuinely honest defense might be the best bet: “I was drunk and I don’t know what happened.” “I thought that happy endings came with the lap dance/massage.” One does not right wrongs by going to the opposite extreme of making accusers defend themselves and their own reputation before their case can be made. Nor does one right wrongs by making everyone guilty before they have a chance to provide a defense. But such a matter ought to be decided by facts and evidence, not prejudice, and the crime of rape seems particularly resistant to evidentiary concerns, given that DNA need not be left for an assault to occur and given that accusers and their proxies in the media (yourself included) tend to defend by first going on the attack, which merely perpetuates the deeper unjust systems that silence tens of millions of rape and sexual abuse victims within the United States. Given that between a fifth and a fourth of all people in the United States are estimated to be the victims of sexual abuse of some kind, we ought to do whatever we can to make the truth easier to tell for all sides.
Maybe it means that we need to educate people that no means no, that we need to help people with bad childhood histories to build enough self-worth that they don’t go into the sex worker business and put themselves in danger of repeated victimization. Maybe we need to do a better job of showing everyone respect, regardless of their profession or race or gender, and of refusing to force our will on someone else period. The best defense against a rape accusation is prevention–don’t get drunk, don’t do drugs, don’t be or hire exotic dancers or strippers, don’t try to push when someone is reluctant or resistant, don’t treat anyone else like an object of any kind whatsoever, and don’t assume that anyone ever exists merely to fulfill your wants or ‘needs.’ Is that so hard to do?
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As a survivor of rape and sexual assault I commend you for writing this piece. I applaud you for shining the bright light of illumination and knowledge on this problem that is all too real.
I want it to be perfectly clear. I was not able to press charges when I was raped. I was not that brave and for any women who were hurt due to my cowardice, I do sincerely apologize that I was not stronger and able to do what I know I should have done.
See, the thing is, one guy…the first one that raped me….was someone that I had had sex with before. He was actually my boyfriend and it was his 16th birthday. I was 15. The second one…well I had gotten high with him and had drank…I was underage for drinking and pot is illegal. I knew that it would have come up and I could not face that being made public because I didn’t want to have sex and he did. The third one, well I was so drunk that I can barely remember if it really happened but I called him out on it and he fled never to be seen again by me. The fourth (which for a long time I thought was the third) was a guy I went to the bar with and we had gone to another room to give my friend and her date some “alone time”…I was drunk and had chosen to be alone with him for my friend so really…who’s fault was that? The fifth one….well again…I was dating the guy and I had had sex with him. I had even agreed to have sex with him that night but he did something I did not want to do, had expressly told him I would not do, and he pinned me down in the MIDDLE of sex and did it anyway. We were already having sex, so really…I was just not clear on my intentions. The sixth….well I was married to him. Any husband has the right to his wife’s body no matter what she thinks, right? Even if that wife had been assaulted…oh wait…had decided against it in the middle of sex and didn’t want to have sex that way before…if said wife agreed to let husband do it but told him that if she said stop he had to stop….that just makes her a cock tease….not a rape victim….and then there is the seventh. The guy from the dating site that brought his 5 year old kid with him to meet me. I should have seen that coming. All guys bring their kids to a rape, don’t they?
The point that I am trying to make is that I was not the “right kind of victim”. Too often women do not report because they are not the “right kind of victim” and they know that their sexual life as well as any criminal life would be dragged out into the open while the criminal, sexual and complete life history of the accused is kept sacred and hidden from the eyes and ears of the court. It is unjust. I feel strongly that if the information regarding the victim is relevant than such information about the accused should be made available too. I say this not only as a survivor of rape from 7 different men that I had foolishly let into my life not knowing that they would rape me (rapist don’t wear signs, ya know) but also as a friend to a woman who’s son lost his very first girlfriend to a rape/murder by a man who was out on parole for raping a very young child and who had been picked up for raping another child, which was 13, and had been released on bond for that awaiting trial. The girlfriend was 16 and a virgin and a very sweet girl. She was the right kind of victim. And she was killed for it.
Sorry for rambling but this is a very very hot button issue for me.
Love and Light,
Lucky Star
http://www.victimnomore.wordpress.com
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Wow :(. No, you’re not the right kind of rape victim. I myself am the survivor of rape and incest, but I was a very small child at the time (age 1-3), and toddlers don’t make good witnesses either, and no one else in my family was willing to press charges. It’s a very sensitive issue for me as well personally, as can be imagined.
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