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From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: rape - (nf)
Message-ID: <964@pucc-h>
Date: Tue, 21-Aug-84 04:11:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.964
Posted: Tue Aug 21 04:11:56 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Aug-84 00:41:23 EDT
References: <2186@sdccsu3.UUCP>
Organization: Tucumcari Divinity School
Lines: 40

From Karen Pickens:

> It seems that some people do think it's acceptable to rape hookers or "loose
> women," including, unfortunately, some judges.

Rape is always a violation of the victim's personhood, no matter who the
victim.  While both rape and prostitution involve sex without love, or at
least without commitment (one could debate whether doing everything possible
to please the client is in some sense love, or just good business), in the
case of the prostitute she has some say, some choice in the matter.  Granted,
if she works for a pimp I imagine she has less choice, in which case perhaps
the pimp should be prosecuted for second-hand rape.  Consider the situation:
a pimp and a rapist both have/take power over one or more women to make them
have sex; it's just that the rapist forces the woman to have sex with him,
while the pimp, through economic or other pressure, puts the women in a spot
where they cannot avoid having sex with other men.  (I wonder what percentage
of pimps avail themselves of the services of their subordinates -- presumably
for free?  An idle question.)  Perhaps, in a sense, pimps are even worse than
rapists.

> And by the way, I do not think rape is ever okay, even (especially?) 
> between married people.

I agree, and I appreciate the mention of rape in marriage.  Marriage needs to
be a continual process of each partner affirming the other's personhood; it is
not a license for either partner to have sex with the other without that
other's agreement.  The rape of one spouse by the other is just as much a
violation of personhood as a rape where the people involved have never met.

The gender-neutral language in the last sentence suggests two possibilities
for discussion:  rape of men by women, and homosexual rape; neither of these
has been mentioned in anything I've read so far.  I myself am not passionately
interested (though not uninterested) in discussing either; I merely put them
up as grist for the mill if anyone wants to use them as such.


-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{decvax|harpo|ihnp4|inuxc|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
[the man with the cornrowed chest hair :-)]