Today in Rape Culture

[Trigger warning.]

Rape culture is CNN anchor Rick Sanchez and a guest on his show discussing Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland man who raped and murdered at least ten women, and Sanchez saying:

I gotta tell you, you and I talked about this the other day but I'm still convinced. As a dad, I've got a little girl, and uh, I just keep thinking about people like this. Look, there's a difference, okay, between, um, date rape as we know it today, or sexual offenders, in some cases where you look at their cases, and go "uhhhh, okay" [makes a face and waves hands around], and a guy like this who's just a nasty human being. This is a back-alley rapist and what appears to be the worst variety.

[H/T to Shaker Kira, who provided the transcript.]

Sanchez is right that there are different kinds of rapists, but they are not distinguished by where they commit rapes. Back-alley or bedroom, a sadistic rapist is a sadistic rapist, for whom the sadism of rape is not a bug but a feature.

To imply, however, that we might be able to distinguish between sadistic rapists and opportunistic rapists (whose acts are just as heinous but aren't compulsive, and thus might be deterred in a culture that promotes enthusiastic consent) by the location of their crimes, or the cost of their wardrobe, or whether they're good students or model employees, is utter balderdash.

As is Sanchez's qualification that one sort of rapist is "the worst variety." That is the sort of distinction which is lost on rape victims.

Regarding the deplorable appearance of seemingly suggesting there's a certain type of rape that would be "acceptable" for his daughter, I suspect (and hope) he's talking about statutory rape in which one teenager is just over the age of consent and hir partner just below. Note to Sanchez: That isn't "date rape." Date rape, better just called rape, denotes a lack of consent. And if you don't want to be rightly regarded as a total fuckneck, you'll keep any mentions of your daughter and "date rape" well away from each other during your loathsome rape apologia in future.

Meanwhile, Shaker Jha points to this story about two Chinese police officers getting lenient sentences because they committed "temporary rape."

Then this forum post by netizen (辽河鱼) with the title "Temporary Rape, the birth of new vocabulary" ("临时性强奸"，又一新名词诞生了) appeared on Netease. It was soon copied and reposed onto every BBS possible. According to Netease this post already had over 870,000 views, and 6,700 comments.

Two police associates form Nanxun, Zhejiang province raped a woman while she was drunk and passed out in a hotel. Nanxun court considered the crime facts, taking into accounts that the two temporarily committed crime, with no prior planning, also turned themselves in willingly afterwards, and was forgiven by the victim, therefore giving lighter sentences of three years in prison. (China News Net)

...According the crime facts Nanxun Criminal court determined the two rapists "temporarily committed the crime". I am confused, what does it mean? Searched all over the internet, I still could not find the term basis and the origin of "temporary committing a crime". "Temporary" means actions that are not official and in short-term. Can rape be differentiated by "unofficial" and short-termed? This "temporary committing the crime" should be a new vocabulary, filling up the gap of our country's judicial system creatively, indeed gratifying.

I guess as long as cops are off the clock, it's totally cool to rape someone. Just a "temporary rape." Yeesh.