It’s a really obvious one, but…

… he’s been charged with rape, not with having sex. Rape charges, not sex charges please.

Repeat: sex is a consensual act

‘Man found dead was on child sex charges’

Not about sex #7893478

“Arrest in sex case”

I’ve said it all already.

It’s still rape

There are a lot of good things about this article. I like the way it emphasises that rapists are not some strange subspecies that lives in dark alleyways but “fathers, brothers, husbands”. I am glad that they highlighted the abysmal rape conviction rate.

But then they spoiled it all by using the word ’sex’ in the headline and elsewhere. Sex with a woman who does not or cannot consent is rape. Sex with a woman who is being forced to do it by someone other than yourself is rape. Sex with a woman who you can reasonably suspect is not able to consent is still rape.

These men justify it by calling it anything other than rape. I wish the media would not allow them that comfort.

Not sex

Man, 46, jailed for sex with girl, 14

I repeat: sex is a consensual act. Even if a woman (or girl) is not kicking and screaming, if her age, a level of coercion or any other reason makes her unable to give true consent, then it is not sex.

The power of words

This post isn’t directly about the media, but the issues raised carry through into that domain.

From Slate:

Yet a Nebraska district judge, Jeffre Cheuvront, suddenly finds himself in a war of words with attorneys on both sides of a sexual assault trial. More worrisome, he appears to be at war with language itself, and his paradoxical answer is to ban it: Last fall, Cheuvront granted a motion by defense attorneys barring the use of the words rape, sexual assault, victim, assailant, and sexual assault kit from the trial of Pamir Safi—accused of raping Tory Bowen in October 2004.

Safi’s first trial resulted in a hung jury last November when jurors deadlocked 7-5. Responding to Cheuvront’s initial language ban—which will be in force again when Safi is retried in July—prosecutors upped the ante last month by seeking to have words like sex and intercourse barred from the courtroom as well. The judge denied that motion, evidently on the theory that there would be no words left to describe the sex act at all. The result is that the defense and the prosecution are both left to use the same word—sex—to describe either forcible sexual assault, or benign consensual intercourse. As for the jurors, they’ll just have to read the witnesses’ eyebrows to sort out the difference.

The article also highlights the different ways rape is thought about and handled compared to other crimes:

The real question for Judge Cheuvront, then, is whether embedded in the word sex is another “legal conclusion”—that the intercourse was consensual. And it’s hard to conclude otherwise. Go ahead, use the word sex in a sentence. Asking a complaining witness to scrub the word rape or assault from her testimony is one thing. Asking that she imply that she agreed to what her alleged assailant was doing to her is something else entirely. To put it another way: If the complaining witness in a rape trial has to describe herself as having had “intercourse” with the defendant, should the complaining witness in a mugging be forced to testify that he was merely giving his attacker a loan?

The fact that judges are not rushing to ban similarly conclusory legal language from trial testimony—presumably one can still say murder or embezzlement on the stand—reflects not just the fraught nature of language but also the fraught nature of rape prosecutions. We as a society still somehow think rape is different—either because we assume the victims are especially fragile or because we assume they are particularly deceitful. Is the word rape truly more inflammatory to a jury than the word robbery? Yes, the question of the victim’s consent surely makes a rape trial more complicated than some other kinds of criminal trials. But the fact that the evidence may be more equivocal hardly makes the underlying word more likely to incite blind juror outrage.

‘Our’ language is often lacking in appropriate terms for rape survivors to describe their experience in, as it is for most groups who lack power or general acceptance. Likewise, ‘our’ legal system is a model that they must frequently adapt their experience and reactions to suit, rather than the other way round.

This case (which makes me very, very angry) is an obvious example of that, but I think it’s important we don’t ignore the instances which are so ingrained we don’t think to question them.

Gay sex offender may be on prowl – police

Gay sex offender may be on prowl – police

Perpetrators do not necessarily rape or sexually assault the same gender they are attracted to.

Not only is this headline homophobic, it is also inaccurate (at least, the offender may be gay, but there is absolutely no evidence for that) and reinforces the myth that rape is about sex.

Also: I’m really bad at thinking up titles.

Sex vs Rape again

Salvation Army makes more payouts to sex victims

One more time (or two, or ten, or a million).

Sex is a consensual act between two individuals of an appropriate age to give true consent. Whilst it may be regretted, it is not something that has victims. This is not sex – it is rape and abuse.

Not about sex

‘Israeli president sex case delayed’

I’ve seen multiple headlines similar to this, and they annoy me no end.

It’s not a sex case. It’s not a sex trial. The men in such cases are not on trial for having sex (although sometimes their victims seem to be, but that’s another issue). It’s about rape and other forms of violence.