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Sunday Star Times
May 4, 1997
Beware, not all rapes are the same
by Frank Haden
I have some professional advice for Ceridwyn
Roberts, who has taken over as national spokeswoman for Rape Crisis.
This is Rape Awareness Week, so it's a good time to set Ms Roberts on the
right path.
If she wants to get anywhere at all she has to face one fact Rape Crisis has
never accepted: There are varying degrees of rape.
Everyone knows a 70-year-old woman sexually assaulted by a masked intruder
who wakes her in the middle of the night and bashes her senseless to shut her
up has been raped.
And we know a randy woman who goes to a party in a mini-skirt, accepts a lift
home, then changes her mind as soon as she gets her gear off in his flat --
but the bloke doesn't believe she means it when she says "No" --
has also been raped.
The difference is that we out here know the rape of the 70-year-old is a
thousand times worse than the rape of the randy party-goer. Rape Crisis insists
the randy party-goer is no different -- that when it comes to rape all women
have the same right to inviolability.
The fact is, of course, that the randy party-goer has contributed at least
half the responsibility for the rape. She took a number of deliberate steps
in the full knowledge the man whose home she eventually went to would assume
she wanted sex.
The time for her to say no was while they still had their clothes on, but he
would have immediately lost interest in her and, like many women, she
"wanted to be wanted" in good old Mills and Boon style.
In most cases, of course, the randy party-goer keeps her part of the bargain
and they have sex. Even when she changes her mind and says "No" at
the last minute, there's a good chance he will accept her decision. On the
rare occasion when he won't take no for an answer, the woman gets raped.
Her misleading behaviour does not, of course, excuse him. There is never any
excuse for committing a crime. But the woman has forfeited her right to the
support of Rape Crisis. She has let the side down -- given women a bad name.
She has made it harder for women who get raped, even though they haven't
issued any false promises, to have their stories believed.
If Ms Roberts has any sense, she will abandon the line that all women are
entitled to behave like the randy party-goer.
She will drop the policy that it is not women's responsibility to modify
their behaviour; that the responsibility is all the man's because he is the
one who does the business.
She needs to condemn randy party-goers who put themselves in imminent danger
of being raped. She'll gain a lot of sympathy presently being withheld.
She'll earn my support, for a start.
Ms Roberts also needs to get real about the tales told by women who, for a variety
of selfish reasons, say they have been raped when there's been no sex at all
involving the accused.
Rape Crisis in the past has remained silent about such women, alienating
thousands of people who would otherwise be supporters.
Any woman who knowingly makes such a false accusation should be pilloried
without mercy. Instead, the woman who falsely accused Waikato student Nick
Wills had her name suppressed, thanks to the efforts of Rape Crisis, when by
rights she should have gone to prison for a long time. It was all right for
Mr Wills to have his name smeared, in the view of Rape Crisis, because all
men are rapists. But she was entitled to have hers suppressed
Ms Roberts will have to rid herself of the idea women can be relied on to
tell the truth about rape.
In the High Court in Christchurch
I once watched a young woman tell the jury a sailor she met at a party raped
her, then in cross-examination admit she had initiated the sex, which took
place under the open windows of a mental hospital nurses' hostel, after
excusing herself to go behind a tree and remove her menstrual equipment.
She acknowledged the accused, until that time a virgin, confided to her
afterward he had "never thought he'd have the nerve to **** a
sheila".
I urge Ms Roberts to reflect on these matters as she considers what she has
achieved in Rape Awareness Week.
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