Re: Bad idea: Punishing false accusers

"John James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> "Rich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 
> [...]
> 
> > And thinking about it, there is an alarming tendency to assign
> > a motive to anyone accused of rape, and this assignment includes
> > both intent and violence as a necessary element (just ask JJ, he
> > cannot tell the difference between rape and violence for all his
> > dictionaries).
> 
> I have said that rape is an act of violence. It is.

Violence is an act of violence. Rape may or may not involve violence.
If it does then it is violent. If it does not then it is not violent.

> Where you are
> misrepresenting me is by implying that I said all rapes involve *physical*
> violence.

There being no other kind.

> We've been through it all before of course.

Indeed. Rape is not violent or not for lack of conceptual understanding. 
If you have to insert violence, that says it all.

> > Let's look at an example. Geez, I'd forgotten Karen. But this is
> > dogma, found at every rape prevention site or shelter. The date
> > only illustrates just how long it's been dogma.
> >
> >   From: Karen Gordon ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
> >   Subject: 'Excuses' for the rapist?
> >   Newsgroups: talk.rape
> >   Date: 1994-04-25 12:40:50 PST
> >
> >   There has been a steady flow of messages on such topics as:
> >   - women having an orgasm during the rape act
> >   - women criticizing other women for behaviour after a rape
> >   - lesbian women writing pornography
> >   - women having 'rape fantasies'
> >
> >   Are the male posters of these topics trying to infer that a woman being
> >   raped is not a very serious thing, considering the above?
> >
> >   Rape is an act of VIOLENCE and POWER control - nothing less.  And NO
> >   action
> >   by the victim, no thoughts by the victim, no 'remote and involuntary'
> >   feelings by the victim during the rape, can ever be construed as
> >   mitigating reasons for the act of rape.
> >
> >   The real problem to be discussed is not with the female victim, but with
> >   the attacker.....
> >   - WHY does he need to be the controller and the victimizer?
> >   - what in his background drove him to the violence of the rape act?
> >   - why does he hate the female so much that he needs to subjugate her?
> >   - how many times in his life will he victimize before he is stopped?
> >   - who are the potential rapists and how can they be recognized?
> >
> >   Time to stop studying the victim and start studying the rapist....the
> >   court rooms have disallowed any 'history' on the victim from being 
> >   introduced in the court to discredit her.  Maybe it's time the male 
> >   posters to this forum did too.
> 
> You've introduced Karen without context here.

Sorry, no. That is the entire post, first in the thread, there is
no other context. Nor would other context make it into a cookie
recipe, it would remain what it is.

> As the only two surviving
> posters from that period, you and I both know that she represented an
> extreme feminist viewpoint which was supported on t.r. only by Nikki Craft,
> who was a militant feminist activist and friend to Andrea Dworkin.

Insofar as her position on what rape is, it is neither extreme nor
uncommon. It just happened to be the first one I ran across in my
deja search.

> Other
> feminist regulars on the group at the time, such as Yojimbo and Avedon
> Carol, vehemently disagreed with Karen (when she wasn't simply re-posting
> boilerplate as she did most of the time). It is not at all reasonable to
> represent this as a 'mainstream' feminist viewpoint.

1) if there is such a thing as 'mainstream' feminism, neither you nor
   anybody else has every been able to provide a single shred of evidence,
   which in itself proves that you are pandering stereotypes. I don't buy
   it, either show it exists or stop referring to it.

2) It's been posted very many times by very many posters to talk.rape,
   it's nether extreme nor uncommon. I daresay that should I visit
   any of those rape centers who say that "women don't lie about rape"
   (or even those who don't) I'll find the same message.

> That said, I would agree with certain of her points - rape *is* always
> an act of 'violence', 

Only if you don't know what either word means. 

> but not necessarily always 'control'. And there is no
> mitigation for a rapist based upon the behaviour of the victim - certainly
> not because of flirting or intoxication. On most of the rest I part company
> with her - as I did at the time.

Don't recall checking the thread view for this one.

The rest deals with issues of consent. Previously, a belief in consent
was sufficient under British law. The new laws (which apparently will
come into force pretty much as they are now) changes that a bit.

   (2) Whether a belief is reasonable is to be determined having 
       regard to all the circumstances, including any steps A has 
       taken to ascertain whether B consents. 

I've not had time to read them carefully, but what occurred to me right
off is that the wording seems to suggest that the circumetances of BSDM 
would disallow consent as a defenese. This was my impression from a 
cursury reading as I attempted to format the paste from pdf (which 
mangles formatting horribly), so it may very well be wrong. But you might 
want to have a look.

> I look forward to more of your mischaracterisations of my opinions though,
> Richard. It's like old times...

Say JJ, you say that rape accusations have to be made by the accuser.
Seems that in the Kobe Bryant case, her mother was the one who called
the police and made the complaint. Explain to me again how, WRT adults,
they have to file a comlaint themselves.

Rich

> [...]
> 
> John James (JJ)