Recently this month, rapist Brock Turner was released from a California prison after serving half of his six month sentence. Last year, he raped an unconscious woman behind a dumpster during a party at Stanford University and has since undergone a messy trial. A lot of controversy has come from the case, but one thing is clear: everyone needs to stop babying him.
"I was born in this country," Turner's father has said to multiple media outlets. "[I] spent my whole life being a law-abiding citizen. And then [I] have children, and one of them makes a slight mistake and gets sentenced to months in jail, while the slut that tricked him gets away completely free."
Brock Turner is a rapist. He is someone who knowingly and willingly took advantage of a young woman who has had to deal with the aftermath of the assault completely on her own. She is not a "slut" and she "tricked" no one. The assault and trial have left her feeling alone and worthless.
"I was terrified of [my body]," the victim said in her letter to the court which went viral. "I didn’t know what had been in it, if it had been contaminated, who had touched it. I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else."
Now that Brock Turner is home, however, this "steak loving" boy has come face to face with the reality that no one likes a rapist. Especially a rapist who isn't punished. In the State of California, rape sentences generally range between three to six years, occasionally even reaching nine. Turner's six month sentence seems a bit like vacation, especially when one remembers that he spent only three months in jail, with personal guards watching him at all times.
When Turner arrived home in Ohio this month, he was met with protesters outside of his home with everything short of pitch forks. Some had signs, some had posters, some chanted, and one man had an AR-15 and a sign saying, "Shoot your local rapist." Turner's parents have called for police to watch their home and keep their son safe. Despite the obvious irony, a few media outlets have run to Turner's aid. On September 8, 2016, ATTN, a non-profit, issues-based media outlet, published an article titled: "Brock Turner Protests Take a Disempowering Turn". The article makes the claim that there have been "militant" protests outside of his home. In the pictures, however, there is only one man pictured with a gun out of an entire group of protesters.
Militant protests are, by definition, "vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause" as in 'militant reformers'. None of these people made a step to physically harm Turner. None of these people have sent gun shots into his home, and none of them have done anything other than exercise their right to Freedom of Speech. They have done nothing illegal, while Turner has. And yet, people are calling for him to be protected?
"Punishing rapists with violence doesn't alter the conditions that produce them," the article says. "Turner is a product of a culture in which consent is misunderstood and under discussed, and rape is under prosecuted." Violence is defined as the exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse. Rape is violent. Protesting rape is not violence. Brock Turner has not been harmed by a single protester, because they are protesting peacefully.
And to say that protests do not "alter the conditions that produce rapists" is a sad and almost pitiful statement. It's an avoidance of the problem. Rape comes in many different shapes and forms, and occurs for different reasons. Power rape, or raping to attain control of the victim, stems from a need to dominate others. In these cases, the victim is generally not harmed past the point of being raped. It is a power trip, the perpetrator feeds off of making others comply to their wishes. Anger or revenge rape stem from the rapist's want to get back at another person. If a woman turned down a man at a bar, for example, this could occur. Sexual pleasure is not the motive for anger or revenge rape, it is the actual act itself - the taking of something the perpetrator wants. Sadistic rape is one of the most serious and least common examples of rape. The rapist has carefully thought out the experience, and seeks to not only degrade the victim but even torture them. Most of the time the victim ends up dying, or becoming seriously injured. The most common kind of rape, and the act in question surrounding Brock Turner, is sexual gratification rape. The rapist is not out to necessarily harm the victim, and violence is only used if the victim resists in some way. The perpetrator wants sex and is going to do whatever he can to subdue the victim without physically harming them, such as using alcohol or date rape drugs to make the victim more willing to comply.
In all cases, the rapist is the cause of the act itself. The rapist seeks to take something - pleasure, pain, power, control - from the victim for themselves.
Consent is not "misunderstood". No means no. It is not "under-discussed" either. From a young age, children are told, "If you don't want to do something, say no," and that is the end of that. If you tell someone you do not want pizza, and they give you pizza anyway, you don't eat it. You don't want it. Simple enough.
But when it comes to sex, there is this idea that "surely the woman wanted it" or "she was into it even though she was saying no" and that is not okay in the slightest. And defending a rapist because people are angry at the fact that both he and his family see nothing wrong with the act of rape is the problem. Making peaceful protests out to be something malicious just because a rapist feels "unsafe" is the problem. Protecting a rapist while in prison for his crimes is the problem.
Stop babying Brock Turner.
[All facts about rape found on SexInfo Online.]
