Rape

"Rape is a crime and Texas will work tirelessly to make sure that we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas."

"Perhaps it is the only crime in which the victim becomes the accused and, in reality, it is she who must prove her good reputation, her mental soundness, and her impeccable propriety."

"There was a young fellow named Scott Who took a girl out on his yacht, But too lazy to rape her He made darts of brown paper Which he languidly tossed at her twat."

"If an accused man believed the woman had consented, whether or not that belief was based on reasonable grounds, he could not be found guilty of rape."

"Rapists often recall being intensely angry, depressed or feeling worthless for days or even months leading up to the rape. Very often the rapists say that the trigger for the rape was when a woman made them angry, usually by rebuffing a sexual overture. The men experienced the rebuff as an insult to their manhood that intensified their emotional misery."

"Societies with a high incidence of rape ... tolerate violence and encourage men and boys to be tough, aggressive, and competitive. Men in such cultures generally have special, politically important gathering spots off limits to women, whether they be the Mundurucu men's club or the corner tavern. Women take little or no part in public decision making or religious rituals: men mock or scorn women's practical judgment. They also demean what they consider women's work and remain aloof from childbearing and rearing. These groups usually trace their beginnings to a male supreme being."

"The way society trains its boys and girls to think about themselves and each other determines to a large extent how rape-prone or rape-free that society will be."

"The best depictions don’t just leave it at the dramatic device of the rape itself. They use it to tell a deeper story about recovery and what effect it has on that person."

"My purpose in this book has been to give rape its history. Now we must deny it a future"

"Rape is a culturally fostered means of suppressing women. Legally we say we deplore it, but mythically we romanticize and perpetuate it, and privately we excuse and overlook it (because we always find a way to blame the woman for letting it happen). In other words, rape is awful— except in war, where the enemy's women are part of the plunder; except in marriage, where a man is entitled by law to have sexual relations with his wife even if against her will; and except in extenuating circumstances where the mere presence of a wornan is cause for a man to rape her."

"Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times, along with the use of fire and the first crude stone axe. From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear."

"In medieval times, opportunities to rape and loot were among the few advantages open to...soldiers, who were paid with great irregularity by their leaders...When the city of Constantinople was sacked in 1204, rape and plunder went hand in hand, as in the sack of almost every ancient city....Down through the ages, triumph over women by rape became a way to measure victory, part of a soldier's proof of masculinity and success, a tangible reward for services rendered...[and] an actual reward of war."

"[R]ape by a conqueror is compelling evidence of the conquered's status of masculine impotence. Defense of women has long been a hallmark of masculine success. Rape by a conquering soldier destroys all remaining illusions of power and property for men of the defeated side. The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the victor's trooping of the colors. The act that is played out upon her is a message passed between men - vivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other."

"Þe fyfþe ys mochë for to drede, To rauysħ a womman here maydenhede, Þat ys to say, a-ȝens here wylle, But ȝyf she grauntë weyl þar-tylle; And, þogh she to hym consente, He ys holde to here auaunsement; For ȝyf she ȝyue here to folye, She kan nat leuë tyl she deye; And he þat brogħt here to þat bysmere, For here foly he shal answere."

"Þe syxtë reyseþ gretë stryfe, To rauys anouþer mannys wyfe; For aȝens God hyt ys euyl dede, And to þe worlde also mochyl drede. Ȝyf hyt be aȝens here wyl, Þe more he douþ hym seluen yl."

"Along with other forms of sexual assault, it belongs to that class of indignities against the person that cannot ever be fully righted, and that diminishes all humanity."

"When she tired, I loosened up a little, to let her blow. Yes, it was rape, but only technical, brother, only technical. Above the waist, maybe she was worried about the sacrilegio, but from the waist down she wanted me, bad. There couldn’t be any doubt about that."

"[A] product of a living organism (the rapist) is used to attack a biological system (the reproductive system) in members of the enemy population. Although this attack need not produce illness, it is designed to produce social chaos … . Sperm so used becomes a social and psychological toxin, poisoning the futures of victims and their communities by producing children who, if they survive, will remind whoever raised them of their traumatic origins in torture. … Unlike bacteria and viruses, sperm is easily containable, storable, preservable, and deliverable by means of men's bodies."

"People will say "you can't joke about rape. Rape's not funny." I say "fuck you, I think it's hilarious! How do you like that? I can prove to you that rape is funny. Picture Porky Pig raping Elmer Fudd.""

"Rape is not a sexual crime. It is not sexual. Rape is a violent crime... it's a violent crime, where you cum at the end. It's no different than if you robbed a liquor store... and then came."

"Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them."

"He saugh a maydè walkinge him biforn, Of whichè mayde anon, maugree hir heed, By verray force he rafte hir maydenheed."

"It’s in the Ten Commandments to not take the Lord’s name in vain. Rape isn’t up there, by the way. Rape is not a Ten Commandment. But don’t say the dude’s name with a shitty attitude."

"You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law."

"Forbear, design no hasty Rape On such a green, untimely Grape."

"As long as there is rape... there is not going to be any peace or justice or equality of freedom. You are not going to become what you want to become or what you want to become. You are not going to live in the world you want to live in"

"Seduction is often difficult to distinguish from rape. In seduction, the rapist bothers to buy a bottle of wine."

"Rape is no excess, no aberration, no accident, no mistake—it embodies sexuality as the culture defines it. As long as these definitions remain intact—that is, as long as men are defined as sexual aggressors and women are defined as passive receptors lacking integrity—men who are exemplars of the norm will rape women."

"Look you, gentlemen, 'tis Grillon, the fierce colonel; he that devours our wives, and ravishes our children."

"Against her will fair Julia to possess, Is not to enjoy, but ravish happiness: Yet women pardon force, because they find The violence of love is still most kind: Just like the plots of well built comedies, Which then please most, when most they do surprise: But yet constraint love's noblest end destroys, Whose highest joy is in another's joys: Where passion rules, how weak does reason prove! I yield my cause, but cannot yield my love."

"Love never fails to master what he finds, But works a different way in different minds, The fool enlightens, and the wise he blinds. This youth, proposing to possess and 'scape, Began in murder, to conclude in rape."

"I want to see this men's movement make a commitment to ending rape because that is the only meaningful commitment to equality. It is astonishing that in all our worlds of feminism and antisexism we never talk seriously about ending rape. Ending it. Stopping it. No more. No more rape. In the back of our minds, are we holding on to its inevitability as the last preserve of the biological? Do we think that it is always going to exist no matter what we do? All of our political actions are lies if we don't make a commitment to ending the practice of rape. This commitment has to be political. It has to be serious. It has to be systematic. It has to be public. It can't be self-indulgent."

"I don’t believe rape is inevitable or natural. If I did, I would have no reason to be here. If I did, my political practice would be different than it is. Have you ever wondered why we women are not just in armed combat against you? It’s not because there’s a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence."

"Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relations with men, in their relations with women, all men are rapists, and that's all that they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes."

"It is not rape if she consents even if her will is weakened, unless fraud or threats are used to that end. Seduction is not rape."

"The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. “My lords,” he said, please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”"

"Should he have treated our sister like a prostitute?"

"I don't want to know about the constitution of the rapist—I want to kill him! I don't care if he is white or black, if he is middle-class or poor, if his mother hung him from the clothesline by his balls: I only want to kill him! Any woman who has been raped will agree."

"Most rapes don't involve any injury whatsoever. We are told that it is a sexually violent crime... [that] it is one of the most violent crimes in the world. Most rape is just lazy, just careless, insensitive. Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal rights he is raping her. It will never end up in a court of law. Instead of thinking of rape as a spectacularly violent crime, and some rapes are, think about it as non-consensual - that is, bad sex. Sex where there is no communication, no tenderness, no mention of love. If we are going to say 'trust us, believe us', if we do say that our accusation should stand as evidence, then we do have to reduce the tariff for rape."

"What the hell are you saying? Something that leaves no sign, no injury, no nothing is more damaging to a woman than seeing your best friend blown up by an IED [improvised explosive device]?"

"In no state can a man be accused of raping his wife. How can any man steal what already belongs to him? It is in the sense of rape as theft of another man's property that Kate Millett writes, "Traditionally rape has been viewed as an offense one male commits against another — a matter of abusing his woman.""

"Rape is a form of mass terrorism, for the victims of rape are chosen indiscriminately, but the propagandists for male supremacy broadcast that it is women who cause rape by being unchaste or in the wrong place at the wrong time — in essence by behaving as if they were free."

"Women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or any form of indecent assault."

"Is it not lawful to do this wrong [rape], even if it is sometimes lawful to kill women....If a woman fights, why should she not allow war to be made upon her? ... But there is no reason why she should suffer so signal an insult [as rape]."

"The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract."

"Raping a woman who did not belong to any man was not considered a crime at all, just as picking up a lost coin on a busy street is not considered theft."

"To say that a husband 'raped' his wife was as illogical as saying that a man stole his own wallet."

"As of 2006, there were still fifty-three countries where a husband could not be prosecuted for the rape of his wife."

"Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter."

"Women quickly learn that rape is a crime only in theory; in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men."