The Disadvantages of Anti-Rape Rhetoric.

The Disadvantages of Anti-Rape Rhetoric.

1.       Anthropocentric. A.R.R. pre-disposes us towards condemning all forms of life that do not have our sexual habits (by our definition) and that do not APPEAR (to our frame of reference) to possess a language and culture that qualifies for “consent” within our culture.

2.       Ethnocentric. A.R.R. pre-disposes us towards condemning all cultural paradigms, indiscriminately, that do not have our sexual habits.

a.       This is not a relativist position. We need discrimination in cultures.

b.      By condemning all cultures that dis-agree with our illusory standards we are indiscriminate in our prejudices.

3.       Shadow Projection. Much of this rhetoric is violent and can only be symptomatic of an impulse to condemn an aspect of the repressed self.

4.       Anti-progressive. If the New Agers are right, the whole notion of the individual, with its “own self-interest”, its “own body and possessions”, and its “personal space” will eventually disappear, if all goes well. The only threat to this is violence, and there can be no question that people who crusade against rape are possessed of violent and fanatical urges. This is evidenced by their inability to provide warrants.

5.       Absolutistic. So let me get this straight. If I do some thing in California, it is a crime against Humanity, but if I do it in a state with a lower age of consent, or a more lenient alcohol tolerance, I am justified. Well DAMN does that ring of Nationalism and Fascism. Nationalism because one has determined one’s sanctity by borders, and Fascism because there is an implicit belief in an Absolute that ultimately must triumph over all deviations from it.

6.       Ultra-Pragmatic. Of course, if one uses the scare tactic of threatening rape then one is condemned as a terrorist. Are our opponents any different? If one PRESUMES it to be the worst fate, then Marx’s Deontological Imperative of abilities and needs can be skewed to sound like “rape rhetoric”, in conjunction with Nietzsche’s view of ability as the Will to Power and Maslow’s view of sexuality as a “need”. But this is just Totalitarianism. Yet if one PRESUMES starvation to be worse, the consideration is reversed. Rape can be a justified end in such a case of which the attempt to make people feel more entitled to their own needs, sufficiently that they might rebel against the State, as the radical Marxist means. Just to cite one hypothetical instance. To say “Rape is never justified”, as though to say it “CAN never be justified”, is blatantly hegemonic. All that it does is that it threatens people from following their ethical DUTY (such as to provide for one an other’s needs) because, by their own admission, it MAY PRODUCE this out-come as a by-product. This is utterly intolerable to the rational mind.

In place of condemning “undesirable ends” we have instead to focus on Means. What are the MOTIVES for a given act? Multiple motives may serve the same out-come, but the motive its self determines Guilt. Hence a warrant is necessary that the opponents may establish an ethical ground. Based upon this ground we might determine not only their standing but all so whether or not we agree and wish to be in good standing WITH them on this ground. Only then can we be said to be justified in our motives. And motives are the arbiter. A romantic who falls in love with a woman seven years his younger is divorced entirely in affect from a misogynist with a trouble childhood. A practitioner of Bondage and Sodomy that forgot to sign a paper and has a vindictive partner (which in a community that celebrates sadism and masochism is not unlikely) is not equal to a soldier that is an opportunist.

Can rape be justified? But of course! It is justified ALL THE TIME. It is not only justified in war, justified in prison, and justified in situations that reactionaries try to “level the playing field”. People JUSTIFY it by their own admission in condemning ideologies SUCH as Marxism by claiming it to LEAD to these ENDS by asking, “well what if what they want to be shared is the body?” This is by definition a justification. The argument is that “Marxism justifies rape.” Fair enough. We can live with that; the ends are non-unique, and the means are imperative. Only by claiming the ends to some how supercede the means can one engage in double think, saying, “our duty is to justify rape (as a by-product)”, and “Should Implies Can”, as Rawles attested, but rape can never be justified”. Try to figure THAT one out.

7.       Dangerously ambiguous and opaque. If no definition is provided for rape, how do I know where my healthy sexual appetites end and a crime begins?

a.       Even definitions are of course inert. I first encountered the word in a dictionary, and it meant to compel another to engage in sexual conduct against one’s own will. When two childhood play-mates, in an attempt to mock me for studying the patterns of snails migrating in their back-yard, arranged a cruel demonstration of human power by trying to force these snails to mate in a “marriage” (because as we all know “marriage is a right” and forcing life-forms to recognise this institution is ethically justified), I accused them loudly and exasperatedly of “raping” the snails. Was I wrong?

8.       Rape Apologetics. I mean, that feminists who crusade against rape are subtly advocating for it needs no more warrant than they seem to feel in justifying the position that rape is bad. Right?*

 *This is not of course to suggest that we do not have a file explaining this for people who want to be KNIT-PICKY.

Dm.A.A.