Why is rape seen as being as bad as killing somebody?

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I was talking to a friend who said that while she doesn't mind seeing people killed in movies, rape scenes disturb her to the point she can't watch them. I found that interesting - murder is seen as being simply the ugly side of human nature - something we're perhaps all capable of in a fit of extreme anger, while rape is seen as being outright demonic and beyond the pale. While rape is undoubtedly terrible, do you think people (Dare I say) overrate it a bit compared to other crimes? People literally act like rape is on par with the Holocaust. It's the one thing you can't show in the movies. I mean even murdering innocent people doesn't seem to ignite the outrage rape does; you can kill someone, get out of prison and generally be forgiven and accepted by society but a sex offender will always be despised. I actually sort of feel sorry for sex offenders because they are so thoroughly and sadistically hated by almost everyone to the point it actually seems perverse.

I've been molested as a teenager once and as an adult once and while it was scary it was far from the worst experience of my life, though to be fair it was nothing too severe. Never molested as a child (that I can remember at least) but if I was I don't think it would ruin my life, at least not any more than it already has been by my OCD/anxiety. I hate the idea that people view a rape victim's life as being totally ruined. I think that's an incredibly negative message to send the victims and probably makes them more embarrassed to talk about what happened to them. It's like where feminism and the patriarchy meet - a woman's worth is seen as defined by their sexuality, and if their sexuality is ruined or damaged, it's like destroying the entire person. Sort of chauvinistic when you think about it.

Rape is definitely way worse than stealing or something, but I can think of quite a few crimes I'd consider worse, like selling someone into slavery, extreme physical torture, chopping off someone's limbs, organ theft, and of course murder. Now with that said, if the rape also involves physical torture or murder that definitely makes things different, like that rape in India a couple years ago.

At least for me personally, it comes down to what I can and cannot justify; I can think of dozens of good reasons to kill someone, but nary a one to rape them.

Really, dozens?

From a legal perspective, for any crime against an individual in the United States, killing someone is considered "the worst" by the Supreme Court, as it is the only crime for which capital punishment is considered constitutional. The death penalty for rape without the death of the victim has been ruled "cruel and unusual punishment" under the 8th amendment by the Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Louisiana:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Louisiana

Of course, this ruling does not prevent individual states with no death penalty from legislating higher (non-capital) sentences for instances of sexual assault than for instances of murder.

However (I've said this before, but it deserves to be repeated) imposing a stricter sentence for the lesser crime of rape than for murder would provide an exceptionally callous rapist (and rapists often tend to be exceptionally callous) with an incentive to murder his victim to eliminate a witness and cover his tracks in order to get a shorter sentence. So when people believe that rapists are irredeemably evil, this is actually - somewhat ironically - an argument for showing restraint in sentencing... because often, they are irredeemably evil, and therefore willing to use any means necessary to avoid or reduce punishment.

It is not easy to get this point across to voters, though.

Last edited by GGPViper on 01 Jul 2014, 10:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

^ I've heard similar arguments against the death penalty. e.g. a gunman who has already murdered someone and would face the death penalty would be more likely to kill hostages or police officers in a stand-off situation as they would have nothing more to lose, hence would be more likely to fight to the death.

If we're referring to things we've seen in movies, then rape and murder don't get equal screen time. Might also be worth noting that we're desensitised to depictions of murder because of this, and comparing depictions of rape to murder in movies is going to involve some kind of bias.

With regards to the severity of punishment:

Murderers end the suffering of the victim du jour, rapists let the victim suffer for the rest of their lives.

I'm not sure which is worse.

On the subject of the death penalty - I don't agree with it in principal and I think that it has no place in a civilised society, but I'm sitting quite comfortably knowing that nobody that I care about has ever been raped or murdered. If I were unfortunate enough to not have this luxury, I'm not sure my views would be the same.

Putting a monster in a chair then electrocuting it to death might actually be a kindness it doesn't deserve.

That doesn't mean a rape victim can never feel happy again though, or that their life is worthless. I think this idea that rape is a "fate worse than death" is insulting to victims and counter-productive to their healing. Not to mention murder is really more of a crime towards the victim's loved ones than it is against them per se and many murders involve torture.

I will say that raping a baby is probably worse than some thug killing some other thug in a clean way like a shot to the head. It's not totally clear cut but in general I view murder as being by far the absolute worst crime.

With respect, is there a rape-victim equivalent of Stockholm syndrome?

Well if I were male like you, the last thing I would ever want to happen to me is to be raped by another male so it seems like it would be easy to see why a woman would think it a horrible crime. Would you want a male to rape you? Men can get raped as well.

That's just the good reasons...

In my opinion, rape is worse than murder, murder the victim is dead and does not have to live the rest of his or her life with trauamatizing memories while when it comes to rape the victim is stuck with those memories for the rest of his or her life and stuck with PTSD!

^
I would say that dead is worse than traumatized. I also don't think I've ever heard of a sexual assault victim say they wished the attacker had simply finished them off either, since presumably they feel lucky to have survived.

I read that a few centuries ago in London they had the death penalty for pickpockets. Which makes discovering a pickpocket very dangerous as they now have no reason not to kill you. This is also why quite a few of the famous pirates fought to the death rather than surrender and be hanged.

Sexual deviance evokes the yuck factor. Consider who people view with most horror, Stalin or a child molester. Both are evil but one is responsible for evil on a scale dwarfing the other.

Why is this? I think we view sex as the animal part of our nature. Society constrains that part of us but sex leaves us totally vulnerable and totally abandoned to irresistible emotions which tear off those constraints. those safeties. That vulnerability is at the heart of it perhaps. Sex is paradoxically the most hidden and most exposed aspect of our society along with violence. The difference is that sex has a universal pull.

Sex is also somewhat "vulgar". Why is the thought of a naked elderly individual unappetising? Why is the thought of parents' sexuality disturbing (Shudders)? Sex whether we like it or not is viewed by most of us with revulsion at the back of our minds. This is subsumed by attraction in most cases but when you have a rapist or paedophile they act as powerful symbols of all that is debased about sex combined with moral outrage.
The rapist is an animal without any self restraint who violates the will and sanctity of the body. The paedophile violates the innocence of a child and takes advantage of their vulnerability.

Not only that they perpretate a crime against the most exposed raw vulnerable and funnily enough intimate part of humanity's psyche. Its a violation of what we view intimate. Death can't compare to that.

Personally logic tells me that murder is the worse crime but ive been desensitised by GTA RPG's etc. Ive never played a computer game where the objective is to rape someone and nor do I wish to.

Last edited by Ectryon on 02 Jul 2014, 8:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Rape and murder are right up there heinous crimes!

Both require swift and painful punishment for the perpetrator.

IDK I'd much rather take it up the sun don't shine than be killed. Not that I'd enjoy either but I value my life a lot.