What is victim blaming

   The news here in the UK is full of a child abuse scandal, this time in Rotherham. A nasty case involving the grooming of a staggering number of young people that was ignored by police and social services for a variety of reasons. Heads have rolled in high places, and I hope that dusty case files will be pulled out of storage and abusers will go down for a very long time. If they can chase up 1960s celebrities in their dotage they can chase up a gang of Asians in a Northern town.
    This morning on the BBC's flagship radio news programme they interviewed one of the victims. Now in her mid twenties, she gave an eloquent and forthright description of the abuse and of the complete lack of action from the authorities when they were alerted.
    The interviewer asked her if there was anything she could have done to prevent the abuse. This prompted a storm of criticism on social media accusing him of victim blaming.

    I have to say, in this case I didn't agree with them.

    There will be enough victim blamers out there, that is certain. She was a whore, she allowed it to happen, she dressed provocatively, she allowed herself to be plied with alcohol, we've heard it all before and it's particularly reprehensible.
    Victim blamer arguments need addressing, and closing down. And the best way to do that is to ask the question of someone capable of answering it. What I heard was a robust interviewee being given exactly that opportunity, and a veteran journalist doing his job of dealing with the issue head on. The result was a particularly moving and effective piece of radio that should leave listeners in no doubt as to the magnitude of the crime or the seriousness of the lack of official response.

    It is important to tackle victim blaming wherever it appears. It does no victim any favours though to cry wolf when somebody else is very effectively dealing with the issue by giving a victim the opportunity to speak for themself.

Hang 'em an' flog 'em...

    I have a friend who is vehemently opposed to capital punishment. In every way, no compromise, wherever in the world and whatever the crime.
    Sadly I can't find myself fully agreeing with her, not because I don't find it unsettling and abhorrent, but because I really can't say there'd be no criminal whose end at the noose wouldn't concern me. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely glad that we abandoned hanging many years ago because it means there can be no more shocking cases like that of Derek Bentley, it's just that I can't honestly say I'd be too upset if I heard that they were going to hang someone like Ian Brady. It would be hypocritical of me to say otherwise.
    So what's brought on this train of thought? The recent tragic and distressing case from India of the young woman who was gang-raped and who subsequently died from her injuries. There have not surprisingly been huge protests at the Indian police's lack of serious handling of the issue, as well as demands that the perpetrators be hung. Can't honestly say I'd get too upset at that prospect, as I've said above.
    It has been interesting however over the last few days to listen to the right-on chorus of Usual Suspects as they rightly go to town on the issue of rape, but fail to make their usual noise over the prospect of someone receiving the death penalty. Maybe they need to examine their stance, or admit their hypocrisy.

On behalf of Mr. Average...

    A week or so has passed, and Julian Assange has moved from the front pages of the world as he stood on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy to the metaphorical chip wrappers. Good riddance I say, and I hope his welcome becomes ever more strained in the single floor of a London building that is forever a little piece of Ecuador.
    We've seen the issue of sexual consent raised to the fore again over the Assange case, and if any good can be salvaged from the affair I think that's it. It's a message that needs to be propagated to the point at which it reaches self-evidence among all sections of the population, and at least the sordid details of Assange's conduct have helped do it.
    Unfortunately though we've also seen some regrettable incidents. People who should know better, running off at the mouth about what does and does not constitute good sexual etiquette, or even defining crazy new terms such as "legitimate rape". And while those in the public eye who make such comments are likely to suffer the wrath of their electorates as a consequence, these moments are a symptom of basic misunderstandings by all sides of the debate which must be addressed if the aim of achieving proper respect of sexual consent is to be achieved.
    If there is one thing transgender people alone can supply, it is a perspective on both sides of the gender divide. Growing up trying to be successful as a man has given me an insight into how men view the issue of date rape and sexual consent, and my impression of Mr. Average is one of confusion, worry, and anger.
    You see, Mr. Average is not and will never be a rapist. Whatever the equipment he was born with gives him the potential to do, his sexual liaisons will not stray very far from the straight and narrow. He'll never cross any lines in the sand, never take advantage of something he shouldn't, and the Mrs'll make sure he never even thinks of invading her beauty sleep for a spot of uninvited rumpy-pumpy. Yes, Mr. Average doesn't get up to much beyond the confines of his Wimpey home and his Ford Mondeo.
    But even Mr. Average has an ego. Deep inside he still fancies himself as a pick-up artist, a player if you will. Even though it'll never happen he likes to think he can find himself in a situation in which he meets the girl of his dreams in a pub and nips down to the Travelodge for a night of torrid passion. And it is this side of him that has made him confused and angry. When he reads of a date rape case, it comes across to him as though such an accusation could happen to anyone, to him even.
    Nobody likes being called a criminal, and when someone sees themselves as being accused by association of a particularly vile crime they are likely to react with anger and, dare I say it, stupidity rather than reason.
    So Mr. Average needs to use the brain God gave him for once, and think before he speaks. And anyone who is addressing him on the subject should take a moment to understand where his misunderstandings are coming from and try to frame their message within the confines of his understanding rather than their own. I really wish that more anti-rape campaigners came from the advertising industry, you don't get very far trying to sell a product in the commercial space by winding up your customers.
    Ever since I first heard of date rape when I was a student back in the early 1990s I've felt the message has constantly become lost in the same shouty argument between the ignorant louts on one side and the shrill campaigners on the other. I hope one day common sense will prevail and both sides will realise it's not about them but the message. After all, it's not a difficult thing to understand, is it.

Rape and that Australian bloke

    There's a famous video from China in which an angry motorist, delayed by a suicidal man on a bridge, scales the bridge and pushes the man off it onto an air cushion provided by waiting firemen.
    If Julian Assange is the man sitting on the bridge, then I think I've reached the point of becoming the angry passer-by itching to push him off it. Tempting though the idea of running into the Ecuadorean Embassy and hitting the fire alarm may be though I'm afraid we're condemned to see the whole ghastly drama play out at a snail's pace. If he's not going to come out I hope the world quietly forgets about him and he ends up mouldering away in the embassy, slowly eroding his welcome. He thrives on publicity and there are too many idiots on all sides who are only too willing to give it to him.
    I get it that Wikileaks took a pop at the Big Evil United States and they'll do anything to get Assange. I also get it that a rape allegation is a very serious thing indeed and he needs to be brought to account for it. I don't need people endlessly turning it into a feminist issue, a press freedom issue or any number of other damn issues. The point at which Assange was one of the Good Guys has long passed, and the British government have really screwed up on the scale at which they seem to have a particular expertise.
    Personally I think the rape allegation has something of an air of convenience about it for the governments involved and I'm sure an extradition case wouldn't proceed at such lightning speed if it wasn't of interest to a superpower. And the circumstances of the alleged crime are such that they are always going to attract controversy. But for someone who knew himself to be of interest to that superpower Assange has shown himself to be at best a complete idiot for putting himself in such a situation.
    Rape as an allegation seems to occupy a uniquely triggering and confusing position. On the feminist side it's a trigger word that trumps all others, thrown around like confetti as way of aligning disparate views and shutting down inconvenient arguments. I take the view that using it in this way cheapens the word, it's crying wolf.
    And on the male side there is a lot of genuine confusion about rape. I'm talking about date rape in the mould of the Assange allegations here, I don't think anybody would be confused about the actions of a sex attacker, instead we're in the territory of drunken liaisons and morning-after-the-night-before regrets. This leaves a lot of blokes bewildered and angry, and when blokes get angry they have a tendency to say stupid things. The news this morning contains several politicians who've waded in where angels fear to tread, for instance.
    Shame really, it's a very simple piece of self-preservation for blokes. Whether you are on the side that sees it as a wicked trap or the one for whom it's sexual predation there's a simple rule of thumb. It's not about whether either party is drunk or awake, or in the charming language of another age which base you go to. And though sometimes behaviour can go beyond the foolhardy it's not about whether someone was obviously gagging for it or otherwise. It's much simpler than that, a three letter word. Do both parties say "yes"?
    Not a difficult word to elicit, and something you'd think Assange would have had the sense to do. But sense seems to have departed that particular case long ago, doesn't it.

Canola, it's like rape.

    My eye was caught earlier this week by a piece at the UK feminist blog, The F-word: 'Things that are not like rape'. It examines the use of the word 'rape', and how it is experiencing something of a linguistic shift in some quarters, being used to express mild annoyance. I agree with the author of the piece: such use devalues the word and desensitises us as to its meaning. Given the serious nature of the word, that is not acceptable.
    The examples given make the point admirably. No, you are not being raped if you attend a photoshoot, or if your online video service increases its prices.
    Of course, the problem is that to the people using the word it is just that, a word. They have never been raped, known a rape victim or even been a rapist. It's not as if I fit in any of those groups either, but one might hope that anyone with half a brain would be able to appreciate the serious nature of rape and STFU before using the word in that way.
    So how does one communicate the level of transgression inherent in the misuse of the word 'rape'? Time to examine in detail its use in the language.
    Regular readers of this blog might remember a piece I wrote a couple of months ago examining the use of 'tranny' when compared to the N-word. In it I used corpus analysis, the science of examining huge bodies of text to find answers to linguistic questions, to examine the collocates of each word: those words which most often appear alongside it.

    This word cloud shows the top 50 collocates for 'rape'. I have removed a few stop words and one word relating to a secondary sense of the word, but otherwise they are exactly as they rolled out of the computer.
    'Murder', 'assault', 'kill', 'torture', 'abuse', 'violence', 'beat'. It tells the story pretty clearly, doesn't it. And it identifies the victims too: 'woman', 'girl', 'child', 'daughter'.
    I don't see anything about photo shoots there, Mr. Depp.
 

    The title of this piece refers to one of the very few acceptable uses of 'rape' in another sense. In the UK, the agricultural crop the Americans call 'Canola' is referred to as 'Oilseed rape'. Its bright yellow flowers are a familiar sight in the fields near where I grew up. The word I mentioned removing from the word cloud above was thus 'oilseed'.