Georgia state rep Bobby Franklin wants to mandate that victims who report rape, stalking, obscene telephone contact with a child and family violence be referred to as “accusers” until they secure a conviction against their rapists. Seriously.
Burglary victims are still victims. Assault victims are still victims. Fraud victims are still victims. But if you have the misfortune to suffer a rape, or if you are beaten by a domestic partner, or if you are stalked, Rep. Franklin doesn’t think you’ve been victimized. He says you’re an accuser until the courts have determined otherwise.
To diminish a victim’s ordeal by branding him/her an accuser essentially questions whether the crime committed against the victim is a crime at all. Robbery, assault, and fraud are all real crimes with real victims, the Republican asserts with this bill.
I’m honestly struggling to critique this bill because the flaws are just so obvious. If the accused were “innocent until proven guilty” of ripping off nice people’s car stereos, or vandalism, or burglaries (which often are a pre-cursor to home-invasion rapes), no lawmaker – especially a Republican – would dare suggest we call their victims anything but victims. Normally Republicans are right out there screaming ugly names for the “accuseds” of the world, and howling at “liberals” for suggesting some young criminals might benefit more from counseling than prison rapes.
Can you imagine the actual outcome of this law? There was a serial rapist in my then-neighborhood of L.A. years ago – and you could tell this story in a thousand neighborhoods in the US. Lots of women were raped by him. The news reported it. He was never caught. Therefore, these would would just be accusers under this law. He wasn’t even found, let alone tried, therefore they’re probably just lying bitches. You know how women are.
I suspect Franklin’s not even serious about this law. It clearly only even begins to make sense (in warped minds) when applied to acquaintance rape. I think he just wants to make a spectacle of himself.
But still: he is vile. Perhaps he needs to be reminded that men can be raped, too, and that if he himself were raped by someone who was never caught, and had to settle for being an “accuser” the rest of his life, people might laugh at the irony.
What we’re looking at here is a new backlash: emboldened by some good laws, women have started reporting rapes a bit more than they used to. Franklin sees this as an assault on the privileges of men. Franklin’s going to put those bitches back in their place.
And don’t think for a minute Franklin’s concerned about all these men – mostly of color – who have in recent years been cleared of wrongful rape convictions through DNA evidence. Calling somebody an “accuser” won’t save one of those guys, because their convictions are all about racism and the willingness of people of all colors to believe a man of color probably is a rapist. If you want to help those men, you would advocate things like DNA processing in every case instead of just a few, better public defense attorneys and screening to make sure police and prosecutors are doing thorough investigations.
No, clearly, Franklin is one of those people who believes every man on Men’s Rights forums screaming, “I don’t know why the judge won’t let me have custody – I did nothing wrong.” Rapists never believe they’ve done anything wrong. Men who molest their own kids never think they did anything wrong. Men who beat their wives never do either. Men who use emotional terrorism to keep access to their victims don’t either. All these men sound innocent when you talk to them because they actually believe they are.
Horrifyingly, it’s not clear from the bill whether children who “accuse” someone of molesting them will be allowed to be called “victims” or not. Feel free to speak out on Facebook.
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Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems that line of “if women complain about rape, next they’ll be complaining when their boyfriends are unfaithful” logic kind of assumes something terrible about men; that they’re seemingly ALWAYS cheating on their wives/girlfriends/partners/etc. because INSATIABLE SEXUAL APPETITE or something.
(I don’t really like the (hyperbolic?) conflation of being cheated on with merely being as unpleasant as experiencing poor restaurant service…I know I’d be crushed if my hypothetical SO was unfaithful to me…BUT IT IS NOT A FUCKING FELONY TO GET CHEATED ON, GODDAMN[/repeating some common sense to rape apologists that will go unread])
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
It also conflates something that a healthy minded person can feel tempted to do (have sex with some attractive person when you’re in a committed relationship with someone else) with something only unhealthy minds are comfortable doing (raping people). This goes back to the assumption that rape is about lust rather than power/hate/violent disregard for another person.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
Jennifer Kesler,
Yeah, I wanted to mention that in my post but I couldn’t figure out a not-clunky way to do it.
Casey(Quote) (Reply)
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