There is a dark underbelly to American culture that rarely, if ever, receives fair coverage in the media today. It is passed off as slut shaming, victim blaming, no big deal or pretty much anything other than what it really is: rape.
This dark underbelly has most recently reared its head in a Navy rape case that is currently in Article 32 proceedings. These proceedings are used to determine if cases can be sent to courts-martial and allows questions that are not permitted in civilian courts.
The questions asked by the defense lawyers were not only invasive, but a prime example of how rape is not considered a serious offense in American law. According to The New York Times, the defense grilled the victim about “whether she wore a bra, how wide she opened her mouth during oral sex and whether she had apologized to another midshipman with whom she had intercourse ‘for being a ho.’”
The questions trivialize rape and are a prime example of slut shaming. Just because a person is sexually promiscuous does not give anyone on the street consent to have his or her way with that person.
For the support of such a culture to flourish in America is disgusting.
Such disturbing instances have occurred in highly covered cases like the Steubenville rape case, where a young girl was paraded around multiple parties unconscious and unaware of what was happening to her. Another recent faux pas occurred when a Montana judge handed down a 30-day sentencing to a former teacher convicted of raping a student.
If a murderer saved 1,000 children from a burning bus as sharks in a hurricane attacked it fifteen years ago, would it matter in the court case? No, of course not. In no other case would such trivial histories be relevant. Yet in a rape case, every effort is exhausted to paint the victim as a harlot to diminish his or her credibility.
How hard can it be to understand the human desire for consensual sex?
As a father to a daughter, it sickens me to think that as she grows up she will have to limit the free expression of herself because it could be seen as “asking for it” or “slutty.” Dare she dress and express herself for . . . herself. In no other way does this sort of misinterpretation of a person go unchallenged. I am sure numerous murderers have said their victims were “asking for it.”
It doesn’t make it right.
Taking a position against rape does not make you a feminist. It makes you a decent human being to stand up to these atrocious and deeply emotional violations of the human consciousness.
How can anyone say this sort of ignorance is okay?
No system of law is perfect and neither is any person, but it must be understood that there is a physical and emotional toll that rape can induce on a person. To rape someone and feel good enough about it to defend the act clearly indicates that rape and rape culture have a serious foothold in this country.
