Credit: Marcus J Ranum

What if women could arm their vaginas with teeth? Would that prevent rape?

The use of rape to intimidate reared its ugly head again in March when more than 15,000 facebook users signed up as supporters of a Facebook campaign to rape and murder white attendees to the June, 2010 World Cup games.  The page create great concern because it purported to be sponsored by the ANC Youth League. The ANC denounced the page saying that it was against all forms of hate speech.  Facebook shut the page down.

However, the fact that the page garnered so many supporters has many concerned, including the inventor of a device known as the “Rape-aXe“, Sonnet Ehlers. She believes this device will protect women from rape and is trying to raise money to 30,000 free instances of this device during the world cup games.

The Rape-aXe is a sheath inserted in the vagina. Inside the sheaf are small hooks that grab onto a penis or object forced into the vagina. This is supposed to cause the rapist great pain forcing the rapist to withdraw his penis and rush off to the hospital to have the device removed.

The device has raised the ire of Western anti-rape advocates for placing the onus of rape prevention on the victim, however criticism of the device is not merely a matter of  Westerners imposing their standards on others.

When Sonnet Ehlers proposed the Rape-aXe 5 years ago, the device was denounced in South Africa amid much controversy. South Africa has one of the highest per-capita reported sexual assault rates (1.47 in 1000)  and the actual rape is estimated to be as much as 20 times that.  Social changes to reduce rape rates are making slow if any progress.  To Ehlers and many who first hear about the device, it seems like a way to fight back against rape.   At a minimum, she claims it will make attackers easier to identify.  Rape survivor Charlene Smith, a leading anti-rape activist in South Africa, disagrees, arguing that it was based on fundamental misunderstanding of rape and was likely to increase the number of rapes that end in murder or serious physical harm.  When the device was first released, Smith and several other leading South African anti-rape activists asked that the government ban the sale of the device.

The appeal of the device relies on a host of rape myths and unrealistic assumptions about how rapes are carried out and how they are prosecuted afterward:

Claim: It prevents rapes because men will avoid rape once they know some women are wearing the device. Only a few women need to use it. Just the fear that one might be bitten by it will stop attacks.

• NO, because not all rapes are vaginal
• NO, because one can avoid the device by raping another orafice.
• NO, because rapist can insert a stick or other object to check for the presence of the device.
• NO, because in South Africa, 44% of rapes are gang rapes and only the first gang member in would be affected, if at all.
• NO, because more than half of rapists rape their own partners (spouses, girlfriends). This device presumes that rapist danger comes primarily from outside the home.
• NO, because not all victims are adult women: 35% of reported sexual offences are against children and 16% are against males.

Claim:It gives women a chance to escape and so shortens the rape and reduces the total damage caused by the rape.

• NO, because it doesn’t take into account that rapists sometimes restrain or kidnap their victim before penetration. Escape is not an option in those circumstances.
• NO, because the device can be removed with a stick. Once removed, it can be turned inside out and reinserted into the vagina with hooks facing outward.
• NO, because a rapist can buy it and wear it inside out.
• NO, because even if the rapist does not remove the device, its presence removes fighting options from a woman. A rape doesn’t stop until the rapist leaves the scene or she escapes. A woman’s best chance of escape is her ability to adapt her defensive approach to the circumstances. If she judges that the rapist is likely to progress to murder if angered, she has no way to stop the escalation, since she can’t very well remove the device.
• NO, because it may sometimes make the rapist less able to withdraw his penis due to pain.
• NO, because it doesn’t sedate and completely disable the rapist.
• NO, because pain increases adrenalin and adrenalin makes the rapist faster, stronger, and more alert, thus more able to react and prevent escape attempts.
• NO, because pain increases anger and anger may increase the level of violence or even motivate someone to kill in revenge.
• NO, because the device only takes hold of a penis during penetration, meaning forced sexual activity has already occurred. The shortening is meaningless because the emotional trauma of forced sexual activity cannot be measured in the number or kind of acts.

Claim: It prevents infection with STDS and AIDS/HIV after rape.

• NO, penetration isn’t the only AIDS vector during rape. A victim who is beaten or strangled or fights back is liable to have defensive wounds that break the skin and is liable to draw blood from her attacker.   This too can result in AIDS transmission.
• NO, it encourages anal rape (to avoid the device) and it won’t prevent AIDS due to anal rape.
• NO, because the barbs used to cause pain can break the skin. Should the sheath tear in any way, the victim will be exposed to both blood and semen.
• NO, because some rapists wear condoms simply to avoid leaving DNA evidence behind.  In that case, it ruptures the condom and actually increases the possibility of penetration based infection.
• NO, because rapists who rape only women are no more likely to have HIV/AIDS then men in the general population at large.
• NO, because condoms don’t prevent contact with genital warts or herpes sores

The method of choice to prevent AIDS/HIV due to rape, is a prophylactic anti-viral combination (PEP) within 72 hours after the rape.  Because of the multiple possibilities for infection, even with this device, one would still need to take this treatment.

Claim: It insures the rapist will be caught and prosecuted because it can’t be taken off without doctor’s help.

• NO, because black market, no-questioned-asked “doctors” have always existed to help criminals avoid detection, so why wouldn’t that happen here?
• NO, because the presence of a Rape-aXe on a penis still doesn’t prove rape. The rapist can say she forgot to take it out. If she was drunk, this might be believable. The case comes down to a debate that is all too often resolved in favor of the rapist: can a drunk person give consent? Alternatively, the rapist can say, she simply forgot it was in, and in the passion of the moment forgot to take it out. Thus the failure to remove it becomes the proof of consent rather than the proof of force.
• NO, because extreme escape and prevention measures don’t necessarily prove non-consent. In Korea, the supreme court threw out a rape conviction even though the woman jumped six stories to escape the rapist. In the USA, a woman jumped out of a car to escape a rapist, and the rapist still wasn’t convicted.
• NO, because it makes it less likely rather than more that a stranger rapist will be identified.  The gold standard in identifying strangers is DNA from sperm left in the vaginal canal.   The device would prevent any such evidence.
• NO, because both inside and outside South Africa, most of the impediments to prosecuting rapists are in the follow-up: willingness of a victim to report, quality of the police report and forensic evidence gathering, failure to follow up on rape kits; resources available to prosecutors; cloudy notions of consent held by judges, juries, and sometimes the law itself; – verify.

Some have argued that these concerns are irrelevant. Even if the device is wholly ineffective it gives women peace of mind and so should be allowed.  However, that peace of mind is an illusion. Ineffectiveness should not and cannot be ignored. Advocacy and fund raising for an ineffective device distracts attention and resources from proven rape prevention methods.

Advocating use of an ineffective device, reduces it to a symbol.  But this isn’t any symbol.  This is an invasive symbol that must be inserted into the body.  Not every woman will be willing to use it.  But if it is a symbol, then its absence in a woman’s body is also symbolic.  The last thing women need is to be considered “asking for it” because they failed to wear a device that not only fails to prevent rape, but can in fact endanger the victim.  What would someone do the first time a lawyer claimed that refusing to use the device implied willingness to have sex?  And what about the woman who wears it? If helping a rapist remove one’s jeans implies consent, why wouldn’t removing the Rape-aXe be treated the same way?

Only rapists cause rape and the best way to prevent rape is to get rapists off the streets and change social attitudes that lead to rape in the first place. Rapists in South Africa view rape as a way to prove manhood or a form of male bonding.    Reporting and conviction rates are low.

To protect women from rape, governments must improve police statement taking, clarify the meaning of consent in rape and insure prosecutions lead to reasonable conviction rates and punishment.   To protect women from rape, society must insure that women who are raped have access to immediate and comprehensive health care to treat the ill effects of rape.   To protect women from rape, men must continue their efforts to find and teach each other new non-destructive ways to define manhood.

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This is not an invitation to rape me

Two years after Italian judges concluded “jeans cannot be compared to any type of chastity belt”, a Sydney jury has decided otherwise. On April 30, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a jury had acquitted an alleged rapist because they couldn’t believe that her jeans could be removed without her assistance. To the jury this constituted reasonable doubt.

The Australian legal community has yet to comment on the case, but rape victim advocates inside and outside the blogosphere have been quick to protest. News of the story was picked up by papers in India, US, and the UK.

A Norwegian self-declared “anti-feminist” blogger declared it a small victory.  Veronica Wensign, chairwoman of the Australian National Association of Services Against Sexual Assault questioned a jury member’s assumption that women were unrapable in certain clothing. ”Any piece of clothing can be removed with force.” The jury had sent a note to the judge which read: ”I doubt those kind of jeans can be removed without any sort of collaboration,’.  Odalisque observed physical force is irrelevant: “Even if he had stood up, walked to the other side of the room and quietly said ‘remove your jeans’ it would still be rape if she didn’t consent. Abject terror is not consent.”

The Village Voice (New York City) observed that even if the complainant had willinging removed the jeans, equating jean removal with consent implies that a “No” thereafter can be ignored. The Well Timed Period blog raised the question of a double standard: when a mugging victim reaches in his pants to take out a wallet we don’t call it a gift. So why do we call it consent when rape victim takes off their pants at the command of a rapist?

In the Australian case, one has to wonder what instructions were given to the jury. How were they told to measure consent? Did the judge point out that collaboration in jean removal did not prove consent? Would he have been allowed to?

Australia is not alone.

In 2006 in Korea a woman jumped out of a 6th floor window. She later testified that she had been trying to escape an attempted rape. Defense argued that she was drunk, had lured the alleged rapist into a bedroom, and voluntarily undressed. To support his case he pointed to the neatly folded jeans found in the bedroom. Despite this he was convicted, but in 2009 the conviction was overturned because the judge was convinced that (a) the neatly folded jeans indicated consent (b) difficulty in removing the jeans indicated that the jeans could only have been taken off by the victim (c) a six story jump could be explained by her drunkeness rather than a desire to escape attempted rape.

Once again the tightness of jeans became a measure of consent. But this case raised a second issue. A reasonable person would have to wonder: if a woman was so drunk as to jump six stories without cause, how could she possibly be sober enough to consent to sex?

In contract law, a contract is null and void if one party knows that the counter party is intoxicated. The contract will not be binding, regardless of whether the counter party is voluntarily or involuntarily drunk.   What matters is that one party knew of the impairment of the other. On the other hand, criminal defendants are normally held to a higher standard. They can only use intoxication as a defense if the intoxication is involuntary.

Presumably sex requires mutual agreement. Consenting to sex is not a crime. Why not apply the same rules of consent to sexual consent as to contracts?  If a defendant is arguing that no crime has occurred because the sexual interaction was consensual, shouldn’t the presence of consent be measured by non-criminal standards?  And if we do judge sexual consent by criminal rather than contractual standards, what does that say about our real understandings of sexual rights and obligations?

These questions lead to yet another question: to what extent do definitions of consent reflect our current cultural understanding of sexuality?  In 1977, when an Italian Supreme Court used tight jeans to overturn a rape conviction, it created an uproar. Female Italian legislators showed up in sessions in jeans to protest. Legal treatises were written about what happens when law and society are out of step.

Is the skinny jeans decision out of step with Australian society? Or does it reflect it? If it is out of step, what can prevent future such decisions? If it is not, what needs to be done to change society’s attitudes so that removal of jeans no longer equals permission to insert?

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(Jehosuah HaLevi)

Why is it that advocating for one cause sometimes makes us blind to another?

In November, 2009 the Huffington Post reported that insurers in 8 states and the District of Columbia permitted denial or cancellation of coverage due to a history of being a domestic violence victim. There was a huge PR storm in the general media lamenting how wrong it was to punish innocent victims.

Two blogs focused on disability issues protested: Three Rivers Fog and FWD/Forward, which cross-posted the Three Rivers Blog post. The post and both blog discussions argued that there is something outrageous in the idea that people would think that denying coverage to a survivor of domestic violence is more heinous than denying coverage to a purely medical pre-existing condition.

Both blogs have an important point to make. In the public zeal to protect the innocent, someone seemed to have forgotten that those living with chronic health problems are no less innocent than domestic violence survivors. No matter who you are or why you need coverage, making insurance too expensive to pay for or denying coverage outright is a terrible thing. The US medical system’s price scales presume insurance coverage. A person who does not have medical coverage is penalized twice, first for the lack of coverage, and second because what medical costs he or she can pay for are priced on the assumption that the average payer is an insurance company with deep pockets.

Who should live and who should die should not depend on who has enough money to pay for medical care. We should be equally upset about this whether the person is denied coverage for acme, asthma, AIDS, a genetic disease, or domestic violence. Life is sacred and all society is responsible for maintaining it.

Unfortunately the two blogs went a bit further and insisted that the outrage was outrageous because denying insurance to an asthma sufferer and domestic violence survivor were morally equivalent. The post concludes “What justification is there for acting as though these practices are any worse than the practice of denying coverage to women who have lupus? There isn’t any that isn’t rooted in a deeply ableist bias.”

Hurling accusations of bias and saying that denying coverage for an inherited disease or domestic violence are morally equivalent fails miserably in respecting the trauma and moral significance of violent crime. Asthma, acme, AIDS, and a genetic disease are no-fault disabilities, unless we want to blame fate or God. On the other hand, domestic violence, is anything but no-fault.

First there is the choice of the abuser to abuse. If we argue that the abuser is a product of his circumstances and didn’t know better, then we shift the burden on society. Society failed to do enough to change the circumstances. Government and charitable institutions, as agent of society, must therefore be responsible. Whether we blame the abuser, the government, or charitable institutions, there are human agents that are responsible for what happened.

Domestic violence does increase health costs, particularly for women. As long as insurers are expected to make a profit on their risk pool, they will have to exclude or charge high premiums to high risk individuals. The moral offense isn’t that it costs more to insure a domestic violence survivor. The moral offense lies in who is expected to pay for that increased cost. Charging a person for a purely medical pre-existing condition is charging an innocent. Charging a victim of domestic violence for the extra cost isn’t just charging an innocent, it is charging the wrong person.

This is the kind of injustice we ought to recognize from elementary school days. From the time we are very little we are taught to take responsibility for our actions. If we spill milk, we clean it up. If we hit a baseball through a window we pay to repair the window. The one person who is not responsible is the victim. Yet in the case of medical insurance in the USA, the victim, the one person not responsible, is the only person being charged.

When insurers charge high premiums or deny coverage to the victim, they are making the victim pay twice for the abuser’s crime: first with bodily injury and second with having to pay for the increased risk posed by the abuser’s violence.

After the bru-ha-ha, the Democratic party pledged that the current medical reform bill would ban insurers from denying coverage based on crime victim status, but a simple ban, doesn’t solve the economic problem. The insurers still need a way to pay for the increased cost of coverage. Once again we have a case of one cause blinding us to another.

Unfortunately we have no mechanism for making the abuser or even the government pay for the economic costs of medical care due to domestic violence. Insurers therefore charge the easiest target: the one actually needing medical care, rather than the one morally responsible for the increased medical risk. They will provide coverage, but at a higher cost to the victim.

Victims of domestic violence aren’t the only people that suffer increased premiums due to another person’s wrongful behavior. People with black lung from their workplace have successfully sued their employers. People whose mobility were permanently impaired from an auto-accident can and have sued for lifetime medical costs.

In theory, a victim could sue her attacker in civil court. However, a lawsuit is useless if the defendent doesn’t have funds to pay the judgment. Employers and drivers have liability insurance that cover the cost of any financial damages. Spouses don’t usually carry liability coverage in case their abusive activities get them into trouble. Unless the abuser is especially wealthy, he isn’t likely to have the funds. Furthermore, domestic partners often have children, so suing a domestic abuser with limited resources takes funds from the same pool as child support.

Even if the defendant has money, not every lawsuit is the gold mine portrayed by the media. All too often negligence and personal damage suits are settled out of court for much smaller sums. After lawyers and out-of-pocket legal expenses are paid, there is little left from the settlement but vindication.

Only one state in the USA, Illinois, has a law requiring that convicted abusers and criminals pay lifetime medical costs for their victims, The Michelle Eppel law (Public Act 94-397) . But even this law has its limits. The state does not step in if on-going medical expenses are beyond the ability of the offender to pay. Additionally, the law only covers the actual cost of treatment for the injuries inflicted by the abuser. It does not compensate the victim for higher overall insurance premiums.

Justice is not just about focusing attention on a cause or the avoidance of victim blaming. Justice first and foremost is about creating a right balance in the world. We cannot achieve justice by looking at one cause to the exclusion of others.

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