Rape is eternal

From the Morning Idiotic Bloviation Dep't:

I have a project for Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton to work on together: ending impunity for rape. Rape-conviction rates are appallingly low across the globe. I don't mean only in countries that many would think of as lacking good justice systems: Conviction rates hover just above 10 percent of complaints filed in the United States and are a measly 6 percent in Britain. Because the vast majority of rape victims don't file complaints, it does not take precise studies or statistics to conclude that most sexual assaults in most parts of the world end without punishment for the perpetrators.

Over the years, Human Rights Watch and other organizations have documented how prosecutors and courts are likely to treat testimony by rape victims with more suspicion than testimony regarding other types of crimes. Routinely, women are aggressively questioned about whether the intercourse was really involuntary, whether the victim somehow provoked or deserved the assault, and whether the assault even occurred. The mistrust is particularly pronounced when the victim admits to being anything other than completely sober before or during the attack.

When the presumed next president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, stood trial on rape charges in 2006, he bolstered his defense with references to tradition and culture. Zuma testified that his accuser had signaled her arousal by wearing a knee-length skirt to his house and sitting with her legs crossed. He said that it is unacceptable in Zulu culture not to proceed to a sexual encounter once a woman is aroused. Zuma was acquitted, but regardless of the outcome, it is troubling that a high-level politician in any country, much less a country with epidemic levels of sexual violence, peddles the notion that women may mean yes even when they say no.

WAPO

Ah, the good liberals -- more fascist than a fascist can ever be. Let me explain.

The good liberal thinks that there is one form of justice that applies everywhere, regardless of whether it's practical.

We immediately see conflicts:

• Evidence for rape is a dubious proposition. We can prove they had sex. Unless he beat her into submission, we cannot prove rape. If she was intoxicated, how do we know what her mental state was at the time? This is why traditional cultures avoided slutty behavior and excessive intoxication. You don't get in these hopeless situations. When it's he-said/she-said, no one is going to convict -- because the chance of getting it wrong is quite high.
  
  

  
  The passage that riveted my attention was a quote from Peter Neufeld and Barry C. Scheck, prominent criminal attorneys and co-founders of the Innocence Project that seeks to release those falsely imprisoned.
  
  They stated, "Every year since 1989, in about 25 percent of the sexual assault cases referred to the FBI where results could be obtained, the primary suspect has been excluded by forensic DNA testing. Specifically, FBI officials report that out of roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases since 1989, about 2,000 tests have been inconclusive, about 2,000 tests have excluded the primary suspect, and about 6,000 have "matched" or included the primary suspect."
  
  The authors continued, "these percentages have remained constant for 7 years, and the National Institute of Justice's informal survey of private laboratories reveals a strikingly similar 26 percent exclusion rate."
  
  If the foregoing results can be extrapolated, then the rate of false reports is roughly between 20 (if DNA excludes an accused) to 40 percent (if inconclusive DNA is added). The relatively low estimate of 25 to 26 percent is probably accurate, especially since it is supported by other sources.
  
  TIP
  

  
  



• Cultural values do differ. In some cultures, rape in some situations may not be seen as a bad thing. Why should we impose our values on them? Liberalism is this odd form of relativism that is pure condescension. In it, everyone but the liberal is an illiterate mongoloid hick who needs re-educating, even if it destroys cultures the liberal doesn't understand.



• If many men are rapists, many women are also sexual predators who will use rape accusations or their sexuality as weapons. If you can put a man away with a rape accusation, break out the champagne and lure him into intercourse, then accuse. If sex is a commodity, women may use their sexuality to tempt dumber men into cooperating, but then get follow-through they didn't bargain for.

There's also another disturbing thought: if a more intelligent creature rapes a less intelligent creature, the offspring will be smarter. I find it hard to find fault with that. Sure, it seems inhumane... but why do we take ourselves so seriously? Rape happens in nature. Rape, warfare, domination, etc. allow the smarter and more adapted to prevail. I think it's time we dropped our moral pretense on this issue.

I think it's also time we looked more critically at the "evidence problem" in rape. The reason there are few convictions, all else aside, is that the evidence is dodgy in the overwhelming majority of cases, which are acquaintance rapes. How do we know it's not post-coital guilt? Our society is not known for its mental stability, and we have to expect that we'll convict a lot of non-guilty people if we rubber-stamp rape cases as this clueless but well-intentioned feminist suggests.