General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Sexual Assault is not like other crimes"-- do you agree? Why or why not?
I really had to think about that one when I ran across it.
I'll say more if/when there's an actual discussion.
curiously,
Bright
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Not only is it violence, it's violence directed at sensitive parts that are connected with our emotions and psyche. It's violence directed at physical and mental parts of ourselves that most of us are taught to share only with people we love and who love us. It's violence that, in some cases, can actually cause biological reactions that indicate pleasure in happier circumstances, leading some victims to feel as if they'd been betrayed by their bodies.
justiceischeap
(14,040 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Yavin4
(35,354 posts)Any crime can cause trauma in any one particular person. You could torture someone without it being sexual and it will live with them forever. You could be robbed and be ashamed of telling someone.
There's no way to measure and compare the traumatic impact of any crime.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)What crime is "like" another crime?
Tax evasion is not like kidnapping either, but I don't understand the point of comparison.
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)I honestly don't know why a woman would feel differently about a sexual assault than being, say, robbed and beaten.
Deep feelings about trust, one's place in society, and sexuality are at play, but I don't know how they specifically work. And being told that sexual assault is "different" may convince her that it is.
For many years, rape and other assaults were not considered crimes, or at least not crimes worthy of prosecution, and in many societies today they still aren't. That would certainly make them crimes unlike others. And when do common male attitudes cross the line into assault-- actually trying to figure that out my complicate things. No matter how easy one tries to make it sound, saying "no" isn't always that easy. Or listened to.
And, of course, it's not common, but men are sexually assaulted, by other men and even by women. Is that to be considered "not like other crimes" the same way assaults on women are?
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)I'm aware that at least some of what might be described as the "identity" aspects of victimization are strongly related to centuries of patriarchal oppression that tied in women's sexual status, activities, etc., with her worth as a (second-class) person.
Yet men are sexually assaulted with regularity, and just as subject to those "identity" victimization elements.
We live in a society that is grotesquely sick and dysfunctional in relation to gender and sex.
But our society is at least equally grotesquely sick and dysfunctional in the area of money, wealth, class, etc.
It seems very complicated to me, and I'm still up in the air about whether crime(s) that might fall in a set related to sex, sexuality, gender, etc., should be in a qualitative class of their own, apart from another set that includes "all other crimes."
ambivalently,
Bright
PersonNumber503602
(1,134 posts)Obviously having $100 stolen from you is preferred to being raped, beaten to near death, or killed.
But it seems like it would be difficult to say that being beaten to near death is worse or better than being sexually assaulted.
So perhaps comparing them as better/worse is not the intent, because that doesn't seem like it makes much sense. Instead I'm thinking the question is leaning for more toward how they are dealt with in the criminal justice sense, eh? Such as there is a minority who believe that all sexual assault claims should be taken at face value, and investigation into the validity of the claims is akin to rape defense and not believing the victim. In which case sexually assault would be treated different than most other crimes. I don't know, I'm just rambling.
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)...so I think you're onto something, there.
There IS a well-documented history of administrative incompetence and bias related to such crimes, the question would be whether mandating specific investigative assumptions and procedures would be an effective reform. Perhaps worth a try.
But with respect to violent vs non-violent, I'm not so sure. I'd rather be slugged and rolled for the cash in my pocket, or even held at gunpoint for my jewelry, than have some sick corporate fuck embezzle and empty my retirement account and leave me facing a destitute old age. There are degrees of trauma attached to trust and its violation that can be pretty devastating even if they don't involve physical violence.
Then again, some meth-ed up twentysomething might shoot someone, assault a couple of people, and leave 3-4 families deeply devastated, how does that compare to what Jaime Dimon has done to thousands and thousands of families dispossessed of their homes? Or what W did, lying us into a war that cost lives, health, and sanity for so many people and their families?
I'm not saying you're wrong, and violent vs. non-violent probably should be part of the assessment process in deciding about investigating, prosecuting, and punishing crimes (not to mention framing the statutes related thereto,) but again it's not a binary distinction.
uncertainly,
Bright
etherealtruth
(22,165 posts).... and the weapon (in many cases) is an intimate act.
Not diminishing the trauma and horror of other types of physical assault ... it is indeed horrible, but it is not an act that outside of the assault one would engage in for pleasure. Although rape is not a sexual act ... the pleasurable act of sex is weaponized
haele
(12,581 posts)then sexual assault - which for all intents and purposes is an assault meant to intimidate and denigrate the value of the victim - would be considered a more egregious crime than any other assault with intent to intimidate and denigrate the value of the victim.
Battery is battery; bullying is bullying - when a person is bullied or battered, if you take a perceived higher cultural value of sexuality out of the equation, the damage done is the same. Pain is universal.
I'm not taking away the pain and terror that sexual assault or sexual battery causes. The addition of the sexual component to an assault is real and debilitating for too many people.
My point is that the culture in my family was such that I was taught sexuality was no more important than any other physical talent or personality trait. While it was an important part of me that I had control of - just as my mental abilities and talents were - sexuality itself wasn't some sort of magical spiritual totem or some singular gift that defined me as a person. Many people would think that this is a sad attitude for me to take, and many others would call me deviant for not holding my sexual integrity higher than my mental or ethical integrity. Because I guess that since I'm a woman, I should be defined by how I use (or let others use) my uterus, just like a man should be defined by how he uses his penis.
Haele