Anarchists and Rape, Statists and Rape, etc.
I have a great attraction to anarchist thought, but I find some of the things particular anarchists say don't make any sense. Mainly I think anarchism is important for reminding us that not every problem requires laws, police, and prisons to solve. But I also think the goal of an anarchist society is impractical given how many control freaks and criminals exist within every society.
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In following up on that claim that a relatively-famous now-dead anarchist was a pedophile (I don't want to name the anarchist because I think the claim was unfounded), I wondered, what exactly is the anarchist approach to rape aka nonconsensual sex?
I used my search engine and looked at some FAQs and other materials. Of course, there is no Pope of Anarchism, just a bunch of people who identify as anarchists and have different opinions about stuff.
Surprisingly, there are a substantial number of anarchists who believe that if we lived in an anarchist society there would be no rape, because everybody would be brought up to believe in consensual interpersonal relations. OMG what bullshit. But I've run into similar arguments from others who support abolishing the police --> they've deluded themselves into believing that crime is the result of a capitalist society with punitive laws, and that under anarchism and/or socialism or whatever there would be no motivation to steal, rape, or murder because we'd all receive everything we need.
Sometimes I wonder whether these idealists have ever met other humans.
A relatively more realistic set of anarchists admit that, yes, there would still be some rape under anarchism, but instead of having police the community would deal with it, or the family/friends of the victim would deal with it, or something like this. Ummm ... you do know that most rape is committed by family members or close friends of the family, and that most victims don't tell anybody, and that when victims do tell people they are often not believed. I get the feeling most anarchists are men and they just don't get that sexual violence is a real and common threat for most women and girls.
But this would be no different from non-anarchist men.
Then I read an essay written by a collective of anarchist survivors of sexual violence. Finally a realistic take on the problem. To summarize, they wrote that all the same problems with sexual violence exist within anarchist communities as exist everywhere else. You have the problem of victims not speaking up because of fear and shame. You have the problem of victims not being believed when they do speak up. You have the problem of people not wanting to take sides between the victim and the perpetrator. You have people arguing over appropriate language and process and standards of proof and fair punishment and proper restitution. You have communities fracture over whom to believe and what to do about it.
I mean, people are people, whichever party, religion, or ideology they identify with.
Something I'd like to point out --> is that even societies that support law enforcement still have lots of rapists, so one might argue that anarchists are no worse at protecting people from sexual abuse than any other ideology. Before you ask: what would anarchists do about rape, ask: what are the rest of us doing about rape.
Earlier this year, former President Trump was found by a civil jury to have committed sexual assault on a woman and then to have lied about it. The jury awarded the victim $5 million in restitution. That amount is 1/5 of 1% of Trump's current $2.5 billion net worth, and otherwise he's still walking free, and is still the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President. So ... WTF is our non-anarchist society doing about rape?
One of five women in the US report they've been victims of rape or attempted rape. This is tens of millions of women. I have two sisters and one of them has told me that she was sexually assaulted by our maternal grandfather. I've been sexually assaulted by a female cousin, and by a male customer when I tried to deliver his pizza. Sexual assault is very common even in our non-anarchist society. So is it fair to ask what would an anarchist society do about rape? Not much more or less than we already do about rape.
But the idea of the rule of law is that we democratically arrive at standards of behavior & punishments for deviation from those standards, when guilt has been determined under a fair and impartial system of justice. If we put the punishment for rape in the hands of amateurs who are friends of the victim, then we'll just have people shooting each other over bare allegations. I also have a brother who was accused of sexual assault by one of his girlfriends. He was arrested, tried, and acquitted. I do believe that sometimes allegations of sexual assault are fabricated.
So rape is commonplace, false accusations of rape are somewhat less common but do exist. The idea of a professional judicial system is that we might deal with all this shit more or less impartially and consistently. But it is probable that fewer than 10% of sexual asaults result in a criminal conviction.
This is only one of many reasons why I favor increased funding for police, rather than defunding the police. We actually have a long way to go before we can assure that most people who commit violent crimes are punished for it. But the problem of rape goes well beyond insufficient policing -- as a society we often don't take rape seriously. Rape is a form of entertainment. We seem to only take rape seriously when debating an anarchist! Why, golly gee, we can't let rape go unpunished in your idealistic anarchy, we need the state to punish rapists!
Well, then, why isn't your precious state doing that?
-----
In following up on that claim that a relatively-famous now-dead anarchist was a pedophile (I don't want to name the anarchist because I think the claim was unfounded), I wondered, what exactly is the anarchist approach to rape aka nonconsensual sex?
I used my search engine and looked at some FAQs and other materials. Of course, there is no Pope of Anarchism, just a bunch of people who identify as anarchists and have different opinions about stuff.
Surprisingly, there are a substantial number of anarchists who believe that if we lived in an anarchist society there would be no rape, because everybody would be brought up to believe in consensual interpersonal relations. OMG what bullshit. But I've run into similar arguments from others who support abolishing the police --> they've deluded themselves into believing that crime is the result of a capitalist society with punitive laws, and that under anarchism and/or socialism or whatever there would be no motivation to steal, rape, or murder because we'd all receive everything we need.
Sometimes I wonder whether these idealists have ever met other humans.
A relatively more realistic set of anarchists admit that, yes, there would still be some rape under anarchism, but instead of having police the community would deal with it, or the family/friends of the victim would deal with it, or something like this. Ummm ... you do know that most rape is committed by family members or close friends of the family, and that most victims don't tell anybody, and that when victims do tell people they are often not believed. I get the feeling most anarchists are men and they just don't get that sexual violence is a real and common threat for most women and girls.
But this would be no different from non-anarchist men.
Then I read an essay written by a collective of anarchist survivors of sexual violence. Finally a realistic take on the problem. To summarize, they wrote that all the same problems with sexual violence exist within anarchist communities as exist everywhere else. You have the problem of victims not speaking up because of fear and shame. You have the problem of victims not being believed when they do speak up. You have the problem of people not wanting to take sides between the victim and the perpetrator. You have people arguing over appropriate language and process and standards of proof and fair punishment and proper restitution. You have communities fracture over whom to believe and what to do about it.
I mean, people are people, whichever party, religion, or ideology they identify with.
Something I'd like to point out --> is that even societies that support law enforcement still have lots of rapists, so one might argue that anarchists are no worse at protecting people from sexual abuse than any other ideology. Before you ask: what would anarchists do about rape, ask: what are the rest of us doing about rape.
Earlier this year, former President Trump was found by a civil jury to have committed sexual assault on a woman and then to have lied about it. The jury awarded the victim $5 million in restitution. That amount is 1/5 of 1% of Trump's current $2.5 billion net worth, and otherwise he's still walking free, and is still the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for President. So ... WTF is our non-anarchist society doing about rape?
One of five women in the US report they've been victims of rape or attempted rape. This is tens of millions of women. I have two sisters and one of them has told me that she was sexually assaulted by our maternal grandfather. I've been sexually assaulted by a female cousin, and by a male customer when I tried to deliver his pizza. Sexual assault is very common even in our non-anarchist society. So is it fair to ask what would an anarchist society do about rape? Not much more or less than we already do about rape.
But the idea of the rule of law is that we democratically arrive at standards of behavior & punishments for deviation from those standards, when guilt has been determined under a fair and impartial system of justice. If we put the punishment for rape in the hands of amateurs who are friends of the victim, then we'll just have people shooting each other over bare allegations. I also have a brother who was accused of sexual assault by one of his girlfriends. He was arrested, tried, and acquitted. I do believe that sometimes allegations of sexual assault are fabricated.
So rape is commonplace, false accusations of rape are somewhat less common but do exist. The idea of a professional judicial system is that we might deal with all this shit more or less impartially and consistently. But it is probable that fewer than 10% of sexual asaults result in a criminal conviction.
This is only one of many reasons why I favor increased funding for police, rather than defunding the police. We actually have a long way to go before we can assure that most people who commit violent crimes are punished for it. But the problem of rape goes well beyond insufficient policing -- as a society we often don't take rape seriously. Rape is a form of entertainment. We seem to only take rape seriously when debating an anarchist! Why, golly gee, we can't let rape go unpunished in your idealistic anarchy, we need the state to punish rapists!
Well, then, why isn't your precious state doing that?