Anti-rape device to hit market – and rapists
A new device called Rapex may soon be for sale in South Africa – a country that has around 47 million people, but had over 54,000 rapes last year. (That’s just what is reported to the police. The South African Law Commission estimated 1.69 million.)
The device would be like a female condom – with teeth. 25 sharp teeth would attach to the male, causing pain and ideally giving the woman a chance to escape.
The barbs would require a doctor to remove them. Presumably that could be reported to the police.
Critics have argued that it is “a medieval instrument, based on male-hating notions and fundamentally misunderstands the nature of rape and violence against women in this society. It is vengeful, horrible, and disgusting.” And that was a woman, an anti-rape campaigner herself.
To that I say: Balderdash. It isn’t male-hating at all. It’s rapist-hating.
Rape is one of the worst things a human being can do to another, and it happens all the time. It’s true that this won’t stop it; we have to fix the sicknesses and sins of our society for that.
But what’s the problem with punishment? Rapists ought to be tried, convicted, and executed – rape should be a capital crime. Especially when committed against children, as 40% of the rapes in South Africa are.
So I don’t feel the least bit bad if a death-deserving rapist feels pain or is injured. If a male doesn’t want teeth biting into a sensitive part of his body, he can easily prevent it by not being an evil and depraved scumbag. By not acting in a way that causes the highest degree of disgust in any civilized person.
What about other objections? Some women might wear such a device to inflict pain on a consensual partner, say as revenge for infidelity. Is the abuse of a thing sufficient to ban the the thing itself? Sometimes, but how often do we figure this will happen? And if it does, why can’t we treat it the same way we treat any other crime; investigation, arrest, trial. We don’t ban kitchen knives because of the few Lorena Bobbits of the world.
The vast majority of women (and certainly all children, which I remind you are 26,000+ of the rapes in South Africa) would not be willing to let a man they hated enough to hurt in that way get close enough to them to be hurt in that way.
The device has been criticised for not being a deterrent. So what? A very basic level of humanity is a deterrent to rape, why should the victims be held responsible for deterring rape? But women wearing Rapex look no different from women not wearing Rapex, so they are just as likely to be assualted. But so what? Not wearing it has no deterrent factor either, people! So why not wear it?
Because it may end up causing more violence, perhaps. A rapist may beat the victim as retribution. That is certainly a possible outcome. But then again, that might occur along with the rape anyway. And better a beating than a beating and a rape, right? Besides, with Rapex, there is a chance that the victim may get away while the male is grimacing with pain and surprise.
But what if a rapist is enraged and kills the woman? But that can happen in any criminal situation when the victim fights back. Should we outlaw pepper spray, stun guns, knives, and handguns? Teach women to always cooperate fully so they don’t get hurt? Don’t even run, that might make the attacker mad? Rapists are the criminals here. If they are already raping someone, they are capable of any other atrocity anyway. Why should we try so hard not to make them angry? And shouldn’t it be up to potential victims to decide if they’d rather fight back and risk injury or death? Perhaps they’d rather die than be so abused, or least are willing to risk it.
One valid point is that this device does nothing to prevent gang rape, of which there is a lot in South Africa. The first rapist will get bit, but the rest will carry with business as usual. Rapex is not a cure for rape. That will not happen until we change how people think.
“It is vengeful, horrible, and disgusting.” Disgusting, surely, but rape is much more so. Horrible, certainly, but much less horrible than rape. Vengeful? Is it vengeful to spray an attacker with pepper spray? Is it vengeful to incarcerate a convicted criminal? If so, then I’d argue that not all vengeance is bad.
But hitting back in a fight is not typically thought of as revenge. Revenge, the bad kind, is hurting someone after they have hurt you, because it gives you pleasure for them to suffer pain. Hurting someone while they are hurting you is a fight, not revenge.
Lisa Vetten, of the Centre of Violence and Reconciliation, said: “This is like going back to the days when women were forced to wear chastity belts. It is a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape.â€Â
It is, and should be, a terrifying thought. However, does that mean they should not adapt? I would much prefer to eliminate the causes of rape than have this product be necessary. But we haven’t done that, and we probably won’t in time to save the 50,000+ women who will report being raped in South Africa. It’s true women shouldn’t have to adapt to a rapist’s world, but the fact is they do.
Women already have to be careful where they go and when, to avoid sexual assault. I can pretty much go anywhere I want to. I used to go for a 1 1/4 mile jog through an industrial park late at night. My wife could never do that. In fact a woman was raped in the area I used to go jogging, not that long ago. When I go out, no one looks at me. Everyone looks at my wife. She gets hassled on a regular basis; she can’t even walk freely in daylight.
We already live in a world where women must adapt to the threat of rape. It doesn’t make sense to condemn a device which could help because it just makes clear what kind of world we already live in.
Let’s all wake up and take this crime more seriously, and perhaps women wouldn’t have to invent things like this to protect themselves.
