Remarks On Rape Idiotic, Dangerous
Henry Aldridge, a state legislator from North Carolina, did us all a favor Thursday when he revealed his ignorance nationwide by asserting that women don’t get pregnant when they’re raped.
It is, after all, Sexual Assault Awareness Week. Aldridge’s outrageous comments remind us there are plenty of people who are uninformed, to put it mildly, about the nature of rape.
Aldridge, a 71-year-old dentist, should know better. His comments, that women who are truly raped don’t get pregnant because “the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work,” cements the notion that women somehow are willing participants in rape. His implication is women who get pregnant during rape weren’t really forced at all.
He’s wrong, of course. Biologically and socially. But his comments point to an unfortunately persistent belief among some that rape victims are just fickle women who change their mind halfway through intercourse.
The facts are quite different. Rape has nothing to do with indecision or promiscuity - or gender, necessarily. It’s all about power, control and violence.
As many as one in three women will be assaulted during their lifetime, according to national studies. The same studies show that one in four girls and one in seven boys will be sexually victimized by the time they turn 18.
Aldridge should ask them if they were willing participants.
He’d probably be surprised at the horror stories - not only those depicting the crime itself, but those about the later encounters with skeptics and a cold, bureaucratic legal system that automatically casts doubt on the victim.
Aldridge perpetuates that myth with his idiotic comments. So do cases like those of Jack Spillman, who was arrested two years ago for second-degree rape in Spokane but served little time when his case was bargained down to fourth-degree assault.
This week, Spillman was arrested in the murders of a Wenatchee woman and her daughter. Both were sexually mutilated.
Sexual assault awareness means more than knowing it happens. It means acknowledging its root as a violent crime, not hormones out of control. It means being outraged every time it does occur and it means encouraging prosecutors and judges to give sex offenders the harshest penalties possible.
We can start by exposing Aldridge’s myth as the laughable - but dangerous - one that it is.
The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Anne Windishar/For the editorial board.