Back To Basics

I was going to avoid the story, because, honestly, how is it possible to say something on the topic of rape that isn't an easy way to make oneself look good?  Like the whole kitten-burning trap, one would think it takes zero moral imagination to speak out against rape.

Sad to say, we are in one of those historical moments when a basic lesson of moral life needs repeating: Don't rape.

I don’t think that we should be telling women anything. I think we should be telling men not to rape women and start the conversation there with prevention.

Full stop.  No more needs to be said, one would think.  Except, as the sign above and the young man holding it make clear, more seems in need of saying.

Dean Saxton — also known as Brother Dean Samuel — regularly preaches on the UA Mall in front of Heritage Hill and the Administration building. On Tuesday, his sermon drew the attention of onlookers, several of whom either personally confronted him or complained to the Dean of Students Office.

--snip--

Saxton, a junior studying classics and religious studies, said his sermon was meant to convey that “if you dress like a whore, act like a whore, you’re probably going to get raped.”

“I think that girls that dress and act like it,” Saxton said, “they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they’re pretty much asking for it.”

With the Steubenville rape case still a fresh wound; a young woman in Canada committing suicide after her sexual assault was photographed, with the pictures shared around among those involved, while the town rallies to the boys' defense; with Republican candidates last year tripping over their own tongues trying to explain their . . . um . . . unique theories about rape and women's physiology; with the mounting evidence that women who have spoken out about sexual violence in recent months face a virulent backlash in the form not only of death threats, but rape threats, as well; with a Republican candidate for the office of Mayor in Omaha, NE facing sexist attacks from Democrats (including one local Democratic pol smiling while holding a t-shirt showing Ms. Stothers as a stripper; douchebaggery is no respecter of party); all this along with all the normal run of sexism and sexual violence that pervades our society, it seems we need to return to square one and repeat, without qualification: "Don't rape."  There aren't any extenuating circumstances that mitigate that; there is no escape clause because the society or culture within which one lives dehumanizes women and permits rape to occur without punishment (see India for recent examples); and, no, there most definitely isn't a religious exemption, as in, "I can tell these dirty sluts who dress like whores they deserved it because God told me to."

Don't rape.

Don't rape.

Don't rape.