I know this is a late post, and I know there’s lots going on in the world…but I have kept waking up in the night for the last few with bile rising over the Republican-led effort to valorize rape over women. If you’re worn out on this topic, just walk on by.
Here’s what’s kept me raging:
Rape is a weapon of war. It is used to terrorize a subject population — or sometimes the forced sexual availability of women whether of the wrong class or the wrong ethnic or national identy is simply understood as one of the spoils of war.
In the context of war, sexual coercion is a wholesale business. When the weight of an army stands behind the man unzipping his trousers, there’s rarely need for a fist to the belly or a knife held to the throat. When death or desperate brutality is the understood alternative, it may even be possible to pretend that there is some plausible simulacrum of consent.