Slut Had It Coming

December 16, 2010

Frustratingly, in any event, the fact is that Assange’s guilt or innocence may be beside the point. All of this is less about whether any one person ever lies, and more about the contrast between the rhetorical power of the word “rape” and the way in which we treat sexual assault in our actual, lived experience.

To be called a rapist in the media is, in the general understanding, a Very Bad Thing, a Very Serious Accusation. But to have committed a rape, or at least to have done something that the other person calls a rape: well, that, it seems generally agreed, is subject to discussion and interpretation. Isn’t there something fundamentally backwards about this approach? Isn’t it wrong that the word “rape” is more troubling to us than the possibility of its having actually happened to someone? It’s true that sometimes, for some men, the label “rapist” has consequences. (For Mike Tyson, for example, it resulted a cameo role in a hit movie and a walk-on at the Golden Globes!) And it’s true that the word has been wielded in defense of power – not only state power, as in this instance, but white power, as when the rhetoric of the apparent threat of rape to white women justified lynchings of black men. But the point is that it’s willfully obtuse to claim this as another instance of cynical women wielding the legal system (which, in this bizarre view, is entirely on their side) to bring down powerful men. The cynicism resides entirely with those who believe that the problem here is terminological.

— Some Preliminary Thoughts on Wikileaks - The Pursuit of Harpyness

12:07pm | URL: http://tmblr.co/ZXftPy2BR5Lq

(Notes: 34)