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Friday, July 15, 2016

Microstory 365: The Right to Not Be Raped

Click here for a list of every step.
Basic Romantic Involvement

I can’t remember what was supposed to go in this slot, but I removed it because it wasn’t that important, and because this is. I’m not going to worry about word count with this one, not as a joke, but because I just need to say what I need to say. Earlier this week, I was watching Nikki Glaser’s Not Safe. The whole premise of the show is to discuss sex openly. The program is informative, humorous, and a welcome relief after a week in a world like this. During one segment of this latest episode, she and a fellow personality took a small break from comedy to discuss rape as it pertains to current events. They still cracked a few jokes, but all in all, it was rather serious. They laid out some staggering statistics concerning recent court circuses—I’m sorry, I mean “cases”. But I guess that’s the real joke. Our adjudicative system is one big first draft that should be thrown out and rewritten. Seriously, if I tried to turn in a paper of the same caliber as the judicial branch, I would receive the only F I never had for writing. Instead of finding the truth, we only care about what can be proved, and if a woman comes forward with an accusation of rape or sexual assault, the first thing people do is try to figure out how to make her look like she’s lying. Victim-blaming should be a concept reserved for academic arguments, right at the top of the fallacy section in your debate handbook. Though I guess it’s already in there with ad hominem, isn’t it? It’s probably in a few more places too.

Rape is real. And it alone is a huge problem, I’ll give you that. But one rape survivor that Nikki interviewed made an insightful point when she said that a majorly overlooked problem is how everyone treats the situation following a rape. Judges, college authorities, and others are constantly telling women what they should wear, or how they should act, or what else they can do to keep from being raped. One dumbass politician even made the completely unscientific supposition that rape victims with ovaries have some sort of visceral “feature” capable of preventing unwanted pregnancies. These are baseless and ridiculous claims that so many idiots believe, if only to justify their own apathy or fear of dealing with the issue. It’s a lot easier to throw out a case and pretend the survivor is lying than it is to punish some stupid fucking football player because he brings in money. That nonsense makes me want to cheer for the Joker in the scene in The Dark Knight where he burns a giant pile of cash. Rapists need to be imprisoned, not just to punish them, and not just to keep them away from society, but so that maybe they can learn that rape is, ya know, wrong? They can’t do that if they get to move on with their lives. In fact, it encourages recidivism. And I know, rape is happening in prison as well, and it sounds like my suggestion wouldn’t work, but that’s an entirely different area where the judicial system has failed us.

Assume the fact of rape is a given, and just about everybody will—at least publicly—agree that rapists should pay for their crimes, but there’s one thing you may not agree with. Judges, and other people who actively support the “rape culture” should too be punished. Every school dean who sweeps the accusation under the rug, every judge who finds a very clear rapists innocent, every defense attorney who conducts oppo research on accusers just to defame their character and detract from the issue; they all deserve jail time. Judges, in particular, have far too much power over what the fuck happens in my country, and I for one am sick and goddamn tired of it. Where in your precious constitution does it say that they’re immune to the law? Why is it that, if a judge has a bias against someone, they get to do whatever they want, because they can always make the claim that they’re not really biased? Oh, they can’t lie? What a relief. If it is in the constitution somehow, then I implore you to get rid of it, because it’s a bullshit document anyway. I’m not sure why we’re still basing our lives on an old document that had no way of predicting present-day society. You don’t put so much trust in the bible, do you? Oh. That’s right. Now it all makes sense. I’m bested again by religion. Women have a history of being subjugated and objectified, so why should I expect things to be any different today? There’s gotta be some way for us to fix things, though. These are your religions...any ideas?

Intellectual Stimulation

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