Three California teens arrested for rape that drove teen girl to suicide

[khad]

Another one

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/teen-commits-suicide-rape-endless-bullying-family-article-1.1314786


Audrie Pott hanged herself in September after enduring relentless bullying, which focused on compromising pictures taken by alleged rapists from her San Francisco Bay Area high school. Her parents do not want these boys to get off without being punished as adults, especially since cases like these are woefully all too common.

By Michael Walsh / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Another girl's life ended too soon.

Now her parents want the three teen boys who allegedly drove their daughter to suicide through rape and public humiliation to be punished — as adults.

The California teens are accused of sexually abusing Audrie Pott, 15, while she was intoxicated and unconscious at a classmate’s house party. To make matters worse, they allegedly took photos of the reported assault and spread them “like wildfire” through Saratoga High School in the San Francisco Bay Area.

"The whole school knows…. My life is ruined," Audrie wrote on her Facebook page.

Eight days later, on Sept. 10, 2012, she hanged herself.

Her heartbreaking suicide was not unique. Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old Canadian girl, also endured continuous bullying from classmates after being raped at a party, her mother said. Earlier this month, Rehtaeh hanged herself and died several days later when she was removed from life support.

And in Steubenville, Ohio two teen football players were convicted of raping a nearly passed-out 16-year-old girl at a party. A teammate testified that he videotaped one of the suspects penetrate the girl with his finger.

Back in California, Audrie's parents did not learn about the rape and cyber harassment of their daughter until after her death, said Robert Allard, the attorney for the victim's family.

"Based on what we know, she was unconscious, there were multiple boys in the room with her," said Allard. "They did unimaginable things to her while she was unconscious."

The boys face sexual battery charges and might be charged with the dissemination of child pornography because the pictures went viral online, NBC Bay Area reported.

Her parents want the trio to be prosecuted as adults. All three suspects are being held at Juvenile Hall until their detention hearing early next week.

"What these boys did is beyond unconscionable," said Allard. "They should be held to the highest standard of the law to make sure this never ever happens again."

The Santa Clara District Attorney's Office refused to comment on the case because the suspects are minors. The superintendent of the students' school district told San Jose Mercury News that school officials are cooperating with law enforcement as the investigation continues.

Meanwhile, the family started the Audrie Pott Foundation to provide scholarships for students of music and art, two of Audrie's passions. They also intend to promote tragedy prevention by counseling youths through depression.

"She was in the process of developing the ability to cope with the cruelty of this world but had not quite figured it all out," the foundation's website reads. "Ultimately, she had not yet acquired the antibiotics to deal with the challenges present for teens in today's society."

The family wants Audrie's name to become well-known so that she puts a face on instances of adolescent sexual assault and subsequent cyber bullying. They hope to have a law passed in their daughter's name to protect other teens.

[MP5]

What a bunch of sick fucking bastards! I don't care if they are only teenagers they should be tried as adults for this and if we lived in a society where the justice system represented the people i would have no problem with these fuckers being strung up.

What kind of generation are we raising when they are taught that it is more or less okay to just take advantage of girls and to use them for their own pleasure as if they where not human beings and instead just play things? :mad: These incidents are certainly not isolated and i myself have seen guys try to take advantage of women when they are too fucked up to fight back or remember much. I was at a house party once and had i not stepped in and told the guys involved that i would crack their heads open if they touched her again something very bad would have happened. It's sickening that our society essentially values men over women and the fight for equality must go on and not let up.

Examples of people that commit these barbaric crimes should be made. Maybe if they knew they would be hung they wouldn't be so quick to commit these crimes. Then again they hang people in India and look how they treat women there. The more important thing though is that society's attitude towards women needs to change. Men and women need to be taught from a very young age that everyone's life regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender is just as important as theirs. We could do a public crucifixion on these morons but unless society's attitudes change incidents like this will just keep happening.

[#FF0000]

What a bunch of sick fucking bastards! I don't care if they are only teenagers they should be tried as adults for this

Uh huh. That'll stop this from happening again.

[khad]

Oh great, another flamewar over whether to eviscerate or coddle criminals. This site is so fuckin old.

[Ele'ill]

I don't see a flamewar though. I think that when leftists take a pro-prison pro-court position they are ignoring those institution's role in rape culture.

[MP5]

I don't see a flamewar though. I think that when leftists take a pro-prison pro-court position they are ignoring those institution's role in rape culture.

The only reason i think these people should be dragged through the court system is because they should not be out in public. In our current society that is the best we can really do.

I addressed the root problems of why things like this happen but that seemed to be strangely ignored.

[Ele'ill]

The only reason i think these people should be dragged through the court system is because they should not be out in public. In our current society that is the best we can really do..

Most of us here on the forum I think want current society abolished so good enough because of limitations within current society is a moot point and I don't think there's going to be too many nods of approval about it. They will get dragged through the courts maybe, go to prison maybe, and come out a product of all of that, probably not be rehabilitated, probably be just as violent if not more so, all the while rape culture remains the norm without so much as a criticism thrown towards it.

[MP5]

Most of us here on the forum I think want current society abolished so good enough because of limitations within current society is a moot point and I don't think there's going to be too many nods of approval about it. They will get dragged through the courts maybe, go to prison maybe, and come out a product of all of that, probably not be rehabilitated, probably be just as violent if not more so, all the while rape culture remains the norm without so much as a criticism thrown towards it.

Well yes i want the current system abolished as well. I have been through the court system and it's a fucking joke. I know plenty of people that have gone to prison and came out 10 times worse. But what are we supposed to do with these idiots? Send them to counseling or something :rolleyes:

[#FF0000]

Well yes i want the current system abolished as well. I have been through the court system and it's a fucking joke. I know plenty of people that have gone to prison and came out 10 times worse. But what are we supposed to do with these idiots? Send them to counseling or something

Probably work towards reforming prison conditions/abolishing them altogether, but that's another discussion.

I'd say something to bring this back on topic, but I just don't know what to say about this kind of thing anymore. This is the third story like this in as many months. And for every story that does come to light, there's tons more that haven't. Nothing new to anyone, but it's crushing when you realize what that means.

[Crixus]

What kind of generation are we raising when they are taught that it is more or less okay to just take advantage of girls and to use them for their own pleasure as if they where not human beings and instead just play things?
Sadly this isn't new to any generation or any sort of societal breakdown. Only new thing is the internet as a tool of further abuse.

[Slippers]

Society is sick. Deeply, deeply sick.

It seems I read a new story like this each day. No doubt much more happens and goes unreported.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

If the choice is between bourgeois "justice" and leaving rapists free to rape again, the former is a terrible choice but less terrible than the latter. Or we could go with vigilante "justice," which to me has an even greater likelihood of making a mess of things that the bourgeois "justice" system.

[Luís Henrique]

I don't see a flamewar though. I think that when leftists take a pro-prison pro-court position they are ignoring those institution's role in rape culture.

Part is this, and part is that some leftists seem to think it is their business to tell the prison-court system that it is not draconian enough. "They should be prosecuted as adults" or "the age for penal responsibility should be lowered" are such kind of far-right populism that is indeed popular with some leftists. "Socialism of the fools", as Jaurés, or was it Bebel, very aptly put it.

Back on topic, what should we discuss? Yes, rape is wrong. Always wrong, no exceptions. Blackmail is also wrong. Always wrong; perhaps one can find some kind of exception, but I don't see any. Whatever makes a young person prefer to kill herself rather then face socially imposed shame is wrong; in this case, it is difficult not to blame puritanic denial of female sex agency as at least partially responsible for this death. When women can simply ignore threats of making sexual photographs public as irrelevant - or, as in this case, even more, as an indictment of the perpetrators, then we will have a better world.

Evidently, the "rape is worse than death" crowd will disagree.

Luís Henrique

[MP5]

Part is this, and part is that some leftists seem to think it is their business to tell the prison-court system that it is not draconian enough. "They should be prosecuted as adults" or "the age for penal responsibility should be lowered" are such kind of far-right populism that is indeed popular with some leftists. "Socialism of the fools", as Jaurés, or was it Bebel, very aptly put it.


The conservatives usually say people should be tried as adults for the stupidest things. They seem to have no problem with rape though.

What would you have done in this case? A year in juvie getting treatment and then a few years of treatment on the street? I certainly would not want to be living next to them if i had a g/f living with me much less if i had a family.

Bourgeois justice is shit but just letting these scumbags walk the street would be a far worse option.

[Luís Henrique]

The conservatives usually say people should be tried as adults for the stupidest things. They seem to have no problem with rape though.

What would you have done in this case? A year in juvie getting treatment and then a few years of treatment on the street? I certainly would not want to be living next to them if i had a g/f living with me much less if i had a family.

Bourgeois justice is shit but just letting these scumbags walk the street would be a far worse option.

Conservatives will evidently try to make penal laws as strict as possible. Trying minors as adults or lowering the penal age is part of that, and I don't see, frankly, how this you would keep such lowering from expanding to theft cases - or from political charges of arson. We shouldn't help them in that.

Do you think I would like to be neighbours with people like that? I certainly wouldn't. But if the option is a police State that bends criminal laws to the demands of reactionaries every time a horrifying crime happens, I must stay with the lesser evil.

Luís Henrique

[MP5]

Conservatives will evidently try to make penal laws as strict as possible. Trying minors as adults or lowering the penal age is part of that, and I don't see, frankly, how this you would keep such lowering from expanding to theft cases - or from political charges of arson. We shouldn't help them in that.

Do you think I would like to be neighbours with people like that? I certainly wouldn't. But if the option is a police State that bends criminal laws to the demands of reactionaries every time a horrifying crime happens, I must stay with the lesser evil.

Luís Henrique

The conservatives up here atleast at the moment are far too busy giving mandatory minimums to evil pot growers then to deal with trivial crimes like rape no matter what the age of the person. So if i think that rapists who by all accounts cannot be rehabilitated should be locked up for life then i am a reactionary? I couldn't give a fuck about some kid stealing something and i am not going to campaign for the political parties anytime soon. Id rather be called a reactionary then be some bleeding heart Liberal who thinks rapists should be treated with kid gloves just because our current justice system is absolute shit. What else can we do? Take them out and shoot them personally?

[slum]

you have to take a pretty reductive view of the US 'justice' system to see it as any kind of solution to sexual assault or rape. here's some stuff to consider:

the vast majority of rapes go unreported, and the vast majority of those reported do not result in a guilty verdict.

many of those guilty verdicts are, like most things related to the 'justice' system, racially weighted. we don't often prosecute white rapists, or the minority rapists of minority women.

in fact, a lot of the women we keep in prison, most of them minorities, in subhuman conditions (see: women being forced to give birth in shackles, high rates of sexual assault by guards, etc), are there because they fought back against their attackers, often intimate partners who would have killed them otherwise.

even if you do get a person convicted of rape, the process of going to court is often re-traumatizing for survivors. many rape crisis centers and women's shelters now receive federal funding not for more beds, not for job training programs, not for counseling, but for how many convictions they can procure by hustling survivors into court rather than providing for the economic, physical, and psychological needs of survivors.

people do not get rehabilitated in prison. many people, both men and women, get raped in prison. a lot of people in prison for possession/b&e/theft/assault charges are sexual assault or child sexual abuse survivors who did not receive treatment or community support when they were victimized and are now paying for society's failure of them with harsh sentencing for other crimes. a rapist might go to prison for two or so years, but later his victim might go to prison for thirty.

i don't think there's any solution to the problem of sexual assault until socialism is a reality, but we can make an important contribution to the situation right now by demanding more rape crisis centers and free medical/psychiatric care, affordable housing, child care, and real sex education in schools that involves consent training. prisons aren't helpful.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

prisons aren't helpful.
No, they aren't. Still, I don't see a better option right now.

[slum]

No, they aren't. Still, I don't see a better option right now.

i outlined a few things above i think of as better options, do you have any thoughts on those? i think improving women's economic condition as well as providing consent training for boys and young men is vital to lowering assault rates. ultimately of course i want to see the end of sexism, violence, and the nuclear family unit as well as the end of prisons- but at the moment i think US mass incarceration is probably a worse option than anything i could realistically imagine, as it punishes survivors more than it punishes rapists.

if the question is: "what do we do with an individual rapist when we get our hands on them"? then i leave that to other posters to debate- but i think we need to move towards a place where justice is redefined not as 'punishment' for a perpetrator but as support and healing for survivors and further prevention efforts, and i say that as a survivor. i know other survivors have different feelings on this; i don't mean to minimize anyone's experience.

as a final note, and i don't mean to imply that anyone is doing this in this thread, i think the fetishization of punishment of rapists is an issue. when people (generally men who are not survivors, i've noticed) talk about how they think rapists should be strung up/raped in prison/incarcerated for life, it tends to become a spitting contest so men can alienate themselves from those "jump-out-of-the-bushes-monster-rapists", when in all likelihood they have friends who have raped women or may have themselves raped women. it contributes to this idea that rapists cease to be men and become monsters, displacing the blame for this violence off of brothers, fathers, boyfriends, husbands, friends onto some shadowy "other" (generally black and/or poor). it distracts from the much more troubling reality that sexual violence and much other violence (excepting state violence) occurs inside the home, is an essential element of the lives of women and children, and yet is not talked about. the veil is never lifted- a man's home is his kingdom, after all! and so these tiny tyrannies persist, unquestioned, as microcosms of the broader, deeper violence we see in state society at large. when we make rapists or their trials and punishment into spectacle, we effectively ignore the systemic nature of this social violence, played out on the bodies of women and children.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

i outlined a few things above i think of as better options, do you have any thoughts on those?
They're all good ideas, but there's a limit to what can be done under capitalism, as capitalism itself creates and sustains the conditions for most criminal behavior, even that motivated by misogyny (which itself is sustained by an ideological system predicated on dominance and violence).


but at the moment i think US mass incarceration is probably a worse option than anything i could realistically imagine, as it punishes survivors more than it punishes rapists.
If a rapist goes to prison for five years, then those are five years the rapist isn't in the community possibly raping again. It's not so much about punishment for me, as it is about limiting future crimes, even if only for a short time.


but i think we need to move towards a place where justice is redefined not as 'punishment' for a perpetrator but as support and healing for survivors and further prevention efforts, and i say that as a survivor.
So what do we do with perpetrators?

[Luís Henrique]

If a rapist goes to prison for five years, then those are five years the rapist isn't in the community possibly raping again. It's not so much about punishment for me, as it is about limiting future crimes, even if only for a short time.

In which case, the longer the penalty the better - and death penalty would be even better. But the whole criminal system, while perhaps stopping some criminals from committing crimes while in jail (it doesn't seem to stop drug dealers at all, and while it may may stop people who were sentenced as rapists from raping further people, it certainly encourages rape in itself - the rape rates in American jails are certainly among the highest in the world), functions as a multiplier of violence.


So what do we do with perpetrators?

We? Nothing. We aren't required to do anything. The bourgeois State arrests them, prosecutes them, convicts them, and jails them. Except when it doesn't. We can of course campaign for the punishment of individual rapists that we feel are getting away with it, and we can make common front with conservatives and demand an even-worse criminal system and harsher penalties. Or we can try to discuss and if possible campaign for a rational prison reform. Yes, I know, something like that can't be really implemented within capitalism. It shouldn't deter us, though, should it?

Luís Henrique

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

But the whole criminal system, while perhaps stopping some criminals from committing crimes while in jail...functions as a multiplier of violence.
I don't disagree about the bourgeois "justice" system, in particular penal institutions, which reflect the barbarism of the capitalist system as a whole.


We? Nothing. We aren't required to do anything.
What if we witness a rape or are the victim of rape, and we're called to testify in a bourgeois court?


Or we can try to discuss and if possible campaign for a rational prison reform. Yes, I know, something like that can't be really implemented within capitalism. It shouldn't deter us, though, should it?
To me, prison reform is a separate issue from preventing rape. I'm not sure this thread in this forum is the ideal place to discuss prison reform, but what can we do to prevent rape?

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Yes, rape is wrong. Always wrong, no exceptions. Blackmail is also wrong.
You're not really trying to equate rape and blackmail, are you?

[Luís Henrique]

What if we witness a rape or are the victim of rape,

If we cannot repeal or prevent the attack by ourselves, we call the police, obviously.


and we're called to testify in a bourgeois court?

Then we testify.

************

But those are individual actions. If someone steals my car, I seek the police to arrest the thief and bring the automobile back - what else would I do? It is unrelated to whether I think prisons will rehabilitate car thieves, or to what I think about the role of automobiles and automotive industry in causing global warming.


To me, prison reform is a separate issue from preventing rape. I'm not sure this thread in this forum is the ideal place to discuss prison reform, but what can we do to prevent rape?

Fight for women's rights, including sexual rights. Try to downplay the hysteria about rape being worse than death, the myth that a woman's value is between her legs. Fight against legislation that put some categories of women - such as lesbians, transwomen, prostitutes, etc. - at greater risk of violence. And fight against the conservative push for worse prisons, and the populist outcry for pitch-and-fork "justice" against rapists or perceived rapists, as this won't prevent crime, but will only make violence become more and more acceptable - including violence against women.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

You're not really trying to equate rape and blackmail, are you?

No, but it seems obvious that blackmail can drive people into suicide.

****************

Murder is wrong. Cheating when playing cards is wrong. Am I trying to equate cheating while playing cards to murder?

Or is rape the only wrong thing in the Universe, and all other human actions - robbery, picking one's own nose, making strawmen at a message board, gerrymandering, and bullying, for instance - deserve a medal of honour?

Luís Henrique

[Quail]

I posted this in another thread about alternative justice, but it's kind of relevant to this discussion.

If we discovered someone had committed a sexual assault, the response would be to ban them from safe spaces and inform people that they had committed whatever offences, and to try to work with the victim(s) to see how they could make reparations and also try to get the offender to understand what they had done wrong so that they could work on their behaviour. But getting the offender to change their behaviour and attitudes depends very much on the offender wanting to do so. So the problem is, will the rest of society be safe while there is a sex offender on the loose, whether they're trying to fix their behaviour or not? I don't see how it would be possible at present for a community to remove that person to keep other potential victims safe. So with that in mind I wouldn't condemn someone for reporting a sex offender to the police.

However, on the other hand, reporting a sex offender to the police could also be pretty damaging to the victim. People, especially women, have their past called into question - their clothes, their drinking/drug habits, sexual history, etc. The case would be highly unlikely to actually make it to court, and it it did, and the offender was actually convicted, they would be removed from society by being in jail, but what would that do? The chances are, they probably wouldn't unlearn the behaviour patterns that made them offend in the first place so when they got out they'd be likely to do it again. Prison also does nothing to deter potential offenders, and the loss of control the offender would feel after being sent to prison may drive them to further abusive behaviour.

I'm basically torn on the issue of how we should deal with serious criminals, or sex offenders for the purposes of this thread. I don't think that the criminal justice system is equipped to properly deal with offenders and societal attitudes mean that any victim coming forward is unlikely to be treated with respect and dignity while going through the process. I also don't think that any hypothetically workable alternative would be possible within the framework of current society. So to me it seems like a choice between two bad options.

[slum]

They're all good ideas, but there's a limit to what can be done under capitalism, as capitalism itself creates and sustains the conditions for most criminal behavior, even that motivated by misogyny (which itself is sustained by an ideological system predicated on dominance and violence).

of course there's a limit. i think we can do a lot to help women right now, though. who knows how long it will be until the revolution, and we should definitely make it a point to root out sexism as well as we can in the revolutionary left before then!



If a rapist goes to prison for five years, then those are five years the rapist isn't in the community possibly raping again. It's not so much about punishment for me, as it is about limiting future crimes, even if only for a short time.

i can understand this, but given that the vast majority of rapists never go to prison, i think that mass incarceration on the whole harms more survivors of sexual trauma than it does protect people from sexual trauma.



So what do we do with perpetrators?

at the moment i would prefer some combination of restraining orders and mandatory counseling for sex offenders.

since we don't have the infrastructure for that right now, i suppose i must concede that i can't answer that question in a satisfactory way.

but rape as a crime is so commonly disregarded by the 'justice' system, and so rarely brought to court, that "what do we do with perpetrators" isn't the question i am ever inclined to ask- my questions are, instead, "how can we help survivors", and "how can we teach people that sexual violence is unacceptable and that consent is mandatory".

[slum]

No, but it seems obvious that blackmail can drive people into suicide.

****************

Murder is wrong. Cheating when playing cards is wrong. Am I trying to equate cheating while playing cards to murder?

Or is rape the only wrong thing in the Universe, and all other human actions - robbery, picking one's own nose, making strawmen at a message board, gerrymandering, and bullying, for instance - deserve a medal of honour?

Luís Henrique

i think you're drawing some very unhelpful comparisons here. since we're not bourgeois moralists (i hope) there's really no reason to draw up crimes on some scale of "wrong" versus "more wrong". the issue with sexual violence and rape is that, like hate crimes, it is politicized. it involves not just the individual who commits the crime, but the society that allows that kind of violence. it harms not just the victim, but the oppressed group to which that victim belongs. these types of crime not only re-enforce a racist and sexist social order, but they can cause lasting trauma for the people they effect, trauma which requires improvements in the way society treats women and minorities to be adequately resolved.

edit: you are probably not aware of this but "hysteria" is actually a term that has been used to discredit survivors of rape and sexual violence when they speak out. it has a long and unpleasant history in the development of psychology and the deep sexism that pervades that field, so it's probably not the best word to use when talking about rape.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

If we cannot repeal or prevent the attack by ourselves, we call the police, obviously.

Then we testify.
I've seen some leftists argue that we shouldn't engage the bourgeois "justice" system in any way. Now I would certainly agree with that when it came to petty crimes, crimes against bourgeois property, etc., but I was wondering if any of them are reading this thread and would include crimes like rape in that. I certainly wouldn't.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

of course there's a limit. i think we can do a lot to help women right now, though. who knows how long it will be until the revolution, and we should definitely make it a point to root out sexism as well as we can in the revolutionary left before then!
I certainly agree. We must do what we can now, and certainly within the revolutionary left. There are still too many men on the revolutionary left who at best just don't see a need for revolutionary feminism or at worst are misogynists.


at the moment i would prefer some combination of restraining orders and mandatory counseling for sex offenders.
Could you please tell me more about the restraining order idea?


my questions are, instead, "how can we help survivors", and "how can we teach people that sexual violence is unacceptable and that consent is mandatory".
Certainly. I don't think we do enough to help survivors, and at worst, our society tries to punish survivors.

[Luís Henrique]

I've seen some leftists argue that we shouldn't engage the bourgeois "justice" system in any way.

I think it is just the kind of stupidity the left indulges in to prevent itself from becoming relevant.


Now I would certainly agree with that when it came to petty crimes, crimes against bourgeois property, etc., but I was wondering if any of them are reading this thread and would include crimes like rape in that. I certainly wouldn't.

If someone witnesses or otherwise knows about a case of rape, and, not having extremely good reasons to fear unjust retaliation, does not notify the proper authorities... then that someone is undeniably a rape supporter. Even if the excuse is some supposed moral obligation to never make deals with the bourgeois State.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

i think you're drawing some very unhelpful comparisons here.

I don't think I am making comparisons, either helpful or unhelpful. The reference to blackmail was because it seemed to me that the victim in this case was blackmailed after being raped. Rereading the case, I think I misunderstood what happened. But blackmail is an horrible crime, and it can have lethal consequences. I don't know why this shouldn't be said.


since we're not bourgeois moralists (i hope) there's really no reason to draw up crimes on some scale of "wrong" versus "more wrong".

Well, why not? There certainly are crimes that are worse than others. Rape certainly qualifies as one of the worst ones. I don't see why one can't consider it worse than smuggling without automatically becoming a bourgeois moralist. On the other hand, I don't see how rape is such an absolute crime that other crimes cannot be even mentioned in the same sentence as it; such attitude seems to me to stem out from the idea that women are irredeemably sullied by rape - which is, if you ask me, an integral part of rape culture.


edit: you are probably not aware of this but "hysteria" is actually a term that has been used to discredit survivors of rape and sexual violence when they speak out.

I hope you don't think I am using the word "hysteria" to "discredit survivors or rape".

Luís Henrique

[slum]

I don't think I am making comparisons, either helpful or unhelpful. The reference to blackmail was because it seemed to me that the victim in this case was blackmailed after being raped. Rereading the case, I think I misunderstood what happened. But blackmail is an horrible crime, and it can have lethal consequences. I don't know why this shouldn't be said.

while blackmail is a horrible crime, it generally lacks the sexist political force that sexual assault does. in this case the suicide of this young woman was related not just to her assault, but to the publication of photographs of her assault and the harassment she endured afterwards for simply being a victim of a crime. the culture that views sexual assault as entertaining, that views women's bodies (and thus photographs of women's bodies) as public property and worthy of contempt, that sides with assailants against survivors because the future of rapists is more sacred than the future of their victims is on trial here as well as her assailants. like a racist hate crime versus a 'regular' murder, it is not a matter of how many people died. any fatal consequence is tragic, of course- not all fatal consequences reinforce an oppressive culture.


i think we both posted on a thread a while ago about how the idea that women are 'irredeemably sullied' by rape is unhelpful and sexist, so we agree on that. what i'm saying is that (and looking back i worded this poorly) i'm not considering rape or sexual assault as a crime that is 'bad'- more bad or less bad then some other crime. i am considering rape and sexual assault as crimes that, unlike other types of crime, have a political component- that is, they reinforce and reveal a societal power structure that oppresses women as a group. the crime is an individual act, the pattern which it occurs in and the context it occurs in is not individual, it is social.

pardon if this doesnt make much sense, i'm a bit shook up by developments here in boston and not speaking clearly.




I hope you don't think I am using the word "hysteria" to "discredit survivors or rape".

Luís Henriquenot at all! i'm just informing you that the word has a weighted history- the treatment of traumatized women in psychiatry and medicine and the history of 'hysteria' is a personal interest and sore point of mine. that's a matter for a different post, i think.

[slum]

I certainly agree. We must do what we can now, and certainly within the revolutionary left. There are still too many men on the revolutionary left who at best just don't see a need for revolutionary feminism or at worst are misogynists.

as this sub-forum so routinely demonstrates... urgh.



Could you please tell me more about the restraining order idea?

ideally i'd like something like what quail mentioned- communities banding together around survivors to exclude offenders from safe spaces. without this kind of community vigilance a restraining order meted out by the bourgeois justice system might be completely ineffective. again, i do have to concede to you that i don't have an alternate solution that makes sense given the lack of effective community-level organization and the current state of the justice system. but i will continue to call for the abolition of prisons since i think they hurt survivors on the whole much more than they prevent further victimization.



Certainly. I don't think we do enough to help survivors, and at worst, our society tries to punish survivors.

a lot of this punishment happens in court rooms and in prisons, when survivors testify, and when they are imprisoned for drug or other crimes.

[melvin]

yeah. fuck rape. fuck prisons and the modern conception of "justice" that doesn't benefit anyone or do jack shit. there's not much to think about this except to just feel bad about it.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

ideally i'd like something like what quail mentioned- communities banding together around survivors to exclude offenders from safe spaces.
Define "safe space." All of society should be a safe space for women, so how do we achieve this? I don't see how excluding offenders from certain spaces will keep them from offending again. If only certain spaces are safe, then I as a woman am only safe if I remain in them, thus I'm limited more than an offender.


i will continue to call for the abolition of prisons
Bourgeois prisons are brutal and dehumanizing. I don't think any leftist would dispute that. Of course they should be abolished, but we need to find a revolutionary alternative.

[Luís Henrique]

while blackmail is a horrible crime, it generally lacks the sexist political force that sexual assault does.

Does it?

A blackmail requires that the perpetrator has knowledge of some particularity of the victim, which is either illegal or deemed immoral by the victim herself. And I would say that most of blackmails that do not rely upon the victim having committed a crime herself, are of a sexist nature: the victim is harrassed, and if the blackmail is successful, extorted and controled, on some sexual issue. Adultery, pregnancy, promiscuity, homosexuality, mere nudity, etc. I would say that if someone gets blackmailed on the issue of being a closet homosexual, and kills himself because of that, that it is a death to be put on the body count of homophobia.


in this case the suicide of this young woman was related not just to her assault, but to the publication of photographs of her assault and the harassment she endured afterwards for simply being a victim of a crime.

Yup. That's what got me confused: I misread and understood that the young lady killed herself because she was being threatened with the publication of photos of the rape, which, if true, would constitute a clear case of blackmail. Thence the reference to blackmail in my first post in this thread. It hadn't anything to do with equating, or comparing, or indeed making any kind of relation between the different crimes of rape and blackmail.


i think we both posted on a thread a while ago about how the idea that women are 'irredeemably sullied' by rape is unhelpful and sexist, so we agree on that. what i'm saying is that (and looking back i worded this poorly) i'm not considering rape or sexual assault as a crime that is 'bad'- more bad or less bad then some other crime. i am considering rape and sexual assault as crimes that, unlike other types of crime, have a political component- that is, they reinforce and reveal a societal power structure that oppresses women as a group.

I see, but I disagree. I don't think there are any kinds of crimes that have no political component. If for no other reason, because it is the State that defines what is and what is not a crime, and consequently the definition of "crime" is a political action. What can be said, on the line you are probably trying to defend, is that rape is often a crime in which the perpetrators seek to enforce a given code of behaviour on the victims - in which the perpetrators seek to enact themselves the role of the State. But even in this rape doesn't stand alone as unique crime - it would be quite similar to lynching (which is probably the reason why lynching comes almost immediately as a popular reaction against rape). And, on second thought, in this blackmail also resembles lynching.


the crime is an individual act, the pattern which it occurs in and the context it occurs in is not individual, it is social.

Which is the case for all crimes.


pardon if this doesnt make much sense, i'm a bit shook up by developments here in boston and not speaking clearly.

Hope you and your people are all right; must be an horrible experience.


not at all! i'm just informing you that the word has a weighted history- the treatment of traumatized women in psychiatry and medicine and the history of 'hysteria' is a personal interest and sore point of mine. that's a matter for a different post, i think.

I am informed of the history of the word. I do belong to a culture that does not assign magic qualities to decontextualised words, though.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Define "safe space." All of society should be a safe space for women, so how do we achieve this?

It would depend on why we think sexual crimes happen. If it is an innate and unchangeable characteristic of men, then, short of "winning the gender war" and abolishing the male sex, there is no possibility of making all society a safe space for women, nor indeed of any "safe spaces" except if they are ghettoes for women, where men are not allowed. And, if so, it also answers your question about how we prevent rape: it would be by women avoiding socialisation with men as much as possible.

On the other hand, if we think that sexual crimes happen because the way people are socialised, or because of the social structures we live in, then the answers are different; we strive to change the oppressive social structures, and/or to change the way people are educated, so that we don't have young men believing that raping a woman doesn't make themselves rapists, or that it does make their victim a "whore", and that "whores" are non-persons devoid of rights, and so that we don't have young women blaming themselves for the crimes of others, or fearing reporting rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment, because of the associated "shame", etc.


I don't see how excluding offenders from certain spaces will keep them from offending again. If only certain spaces are safe, then I as a woman am only safe if I remain in them, thus I'm limited more than an offender.

Yup. That's the reason why "separatist" positions are so deeply mistaken.


Bourgeois prisons are brutal and dehumanizing. I don't think any leftist would dispute that. Of course they should be abolished, but we need to find a revolutionary alternative.

Certainly. I don't think however a revolutionary alternative is possible within capitalism.

Luís Henrique