Why are we more comfortable with murder than rape?

[kentington]

I find it hard to get myself to say that the person who ended up dead wasn't a victim. There may be several victims in one scenario. If you're killed, you've been deprived of your life, which makes you a victim. To make a comparison, many convicted pedophiles were themselves raped as young, they are both victims and criminals.

I understand what you are saying and I can agree that there would be multiple victims in a given situation. But one of them willingly put themselves in that situation. I find them less of a victim.

The comparison isn't really similar. This would be the equivalent:
If someone had an attempt on their life as a child and then went on to be a murderer then this person would be both victim and criminal.

So you're saying that someone who was raped as a child, and then goes on to rape other children when he grows up, isn't both a victim and criminal?
He clearly is, so the comparison works.

This is not at all what I was saying. I am saying that the person who was raped and ends up raping others is both victim and criminal. That is fact not opinion.

I was saying that, while I agree, it wasn't really a good comparison to what I had posted. I was talking about the self defense case and saying that in legitimate self defense cases that it really isn't a blame game. There is one main victim. The one who wasn't in the situation by choice.

Also it's not always clear who's the attacker, it could be a situation where one person starts the fight, the other overreacts and tries to kill the instigator and he defends himself and in the process kill the other. In that case, the same person who started the fight and killed the other can still get away with defending himself if the judges deem the overreaction severe enough.

In my situation there were no extenuating circumstances. Person A attempted to murder Person B. Person B defended themselves and Person A was killed.
Person B is still the victim. Person A can be a victim at some point, true, but in this situation they are the attacker and not the victim in my opinion.

[Gillipig]

I find it hard to get myself to say that the person who ended up dead wasn't a victim. There may be several victims in one scenario. If you're killed, you've been deprived of your life, which makes you a victim. To make a comparison, many convicted pedophiles were themselves raped as young, they are both victims and criminals.

I understand what you are saying and I can agree that there would be multiple victims in a given situation. But one of them willingly put themselves in that situation. I find them less of a victim.

The comparison isn't really similar. This would be the equivalent:
If someone had an attempt on their life as a child and then went on to be a murderer then this person would be both victim and criminal.

So you're saying that someone who was raped as a child, and then goes on to rape other children when he grows up, isn't both a victim and criminal?
He clearly is, so the comparison works.

This is not at all what I was saying. I am saying that the person who was raped and ends up raping others is both victim and criminal. That is fact not opinion.

I was saying that, while I agree, it wasn't really a good comparison to what I had posted. I was talking about the self defense case and saying that in legitimate self defense cases that it really isn't a blame game. There is one main victim. The one who wasn't in the situation by choice.

Also it's not always clear who's the attacker, it could be a situation where one person starts the fight, the other overreacts and tries to kill the instigator and he defends himself and in the process kill the other. In that case, the same person who started the fight and killed the other can still get away with defending himself if the judges deem the overreaction severe enough.

In my situation there were no extenuating circumstances. Person A attempted to murder Person B. Person B defended themselves and Person A was killed.
Person B is still the victim. Person A can be a victim at some point, true, but in this situation they are the attacker and not the victim in my opinion.

This is getting a little too confusing, let's just drop it lol.

[kentington]

This is getting a little too confusing, let's just drop it lol.

Done.

[john9blue]

Humans are killers by nature. More than rapists actually. Although we seem to like that as well. Now go on and tell me why you think we're an inherently good species. (if that's what you think)

i hope you're not a big fan of democracy...

[DoomYoshi]

People who get murdered usually are "asking for it". When they aren't, there is still an outrage.

People who get raped are not usually "asking for it".

The entire reason we have society, technology, economy, literature, everything is just so men can make themselves look better and get with more women. If somebody decides to circumvent all these systems and just grab women, it breaks the only fundamental rule of existence.

Murder however, is a noble cause, unless you are killing pretty, young, white, virgins. This form of murder is still taboo. That is because they are the only real commodity on the planet. Nothing else has any value (gold is only measured by how much virginity it can buy).

Nobody actually cares if another Arab man is killed by a drone, or another Old Japanese woman gets her face melted off by nukes, because nobody wants them around in the first place.

Most people are racists, as evidenced by this thread.

[Army of GOD]

the Wizard of Oz is a classic

[Metsfanmax]

There is something dehumanizing about non-consensual rape (I say that as I am excluding statuatory rape where both partners are willing but there's an issue of legal age which qualifies it as rape). Especially in American culture. We grow up with this notion that we have free will and someone comes along and takes that away in a very personal way and if they don't kill us they leave us in that state where we know what happened. Not to mention that rape is not a soft crime by any means. Raping someone often involves either drugging someone (date rape) or violently accosting them if not both. I have never been raped myself so I cannot say with absolute certainty but that to me sounds a horrible horrible thing to happen to anyone.

I agree with this 100%.

It is a horrible attack on free will that this person now has to live with the rest of their lives. For me personally, I would rather die then be raped.

This idea really needs to die out. No one says "I would rather die than be mugged and beaten," yet that is also an act of violence that denigrates the liberty of the victim. Rape is an act of violence and should be treated as such. It should not take on a special dehumanizing context just because the weapon may be a penis instead of a fist.

[kentington]

There is something dehumanizing about non-consensual rape (I say that as I am excluding statuatory rape where both partners are willing but there's an issue of legal age which qualifies it as rape). Especially in American culture. We grow up with this notion that we have free will and someone comes along and takes that away in a very personal way and if they don't kill us they leave us in that state where we know what happened. Not to mention that rape is not a soft crime by any means. Raping someone often involves either drugging someone (date rape) or violently accosting them if not both. I have never been raped myself so I cannot say with absolute certainty but that to me sounds a horrible horrible thing to happen to anyone.

I agree with this 100%.

It is a horrible attack on free will that this person now has to live with the rest of their lives. For me personally, I would rather die then be raped.

This idea really needs to die out. No one says "I would rather die than be mugged and beaten," yet that is also an act of violence that denigrates the liberty of the victim. Rape is an act of violence and should be treated as such. It should not take on a special dehumanizing context just because the weapon may be a penis instead of a fist.

I should no longer have an opinion on what I would prefer to suffer? Death or rape. Mugged and beaten is different than rape for some people. I think the idea that some people think that rape is the same thing as being beaten and mugged, and that everyone else should share the same opinion is ludicrous.

[Metsfanmax]

There is something dehumanizing about non-consensual rape (I say that as I am excluding statuatory rape where both partners are willing but there's an issue of legal age which qualifies it as rape). Especially in American culture. We grow up with this notion that we have free will and someone comes along and takes that away in a very personal way and if they don't kill us they leave us in that state where we know what happened. Not to mention that rape is not a soft crime by any means. Raping someone often involves either drugging someone (date rape) or violently accosting them if not both. I have never been raped myself so I cannot say with absolute certainty but that to me sounds a horrible horrible thing to happen to anyone.

I agree with this 100%.

It is a horrible attack on free will that this person now has to live with the rest of their lives. For me personally, I would rather die then be raped.

This idea really needs to die out. No one says "I would rather die than be mugged and beaten," yet that is also an act of violence that denigrates the liberty of the victim. Rape is an act of violence and should be treated as such. It should not take on a special dehumanizing context just because the weapon may be a penis instead of a fist.

I should no longer have an opinion on what I would prefer to suffer? Death or rape. Mugged and beaten is different than rape for some people. I think the idea that some people think that rape is the same thing as being beaten and mugged, and that everyone else should share the same opinion is ludicrous.

You're free to have an opinion on what you think is worse, but you said you agree "100%" with what you quoted, and what you quoted said that rape is dehumanizing, and implied strongly that it is more dehumanizing than other acts of violence. This is a disempowering idea. I worry that we can never end the culture of rape if the victims, the ones who have the strongest personal interest in making sure violent rape is eradicated, are unwilling to continue living and fighting for what is right. You should never let someone else define your humanity for you. As long as you are alive and have your cognitive abilities, you are the only one who can define it. I made the "mugged and beaten" analogy not to start a discussion over which is worse, but simply to point out that few think that being violently assaulted with normal weapons is somehow "dehumanizing," and rightly so.

[kentington]

There is something dehumanizing about non-consensual rape (I say that as I am excluding statuatory rape where both partners are willing but there's an issue of legal age which qualifies it as rape). Especially in American culture. We grow up with this notion that we have free will and someone comes along and takes that away in a very personal way and if they don't kill us they leave us in that state where we know what happened. Not to mention that rape is not a soft crime by any means. Raping someone often involves either drugging someone (date rape) or violently accosting them if not both. I have never been raped myself so I cannot say with absolute certainty but that to me sounds a horrible horrible thing to happen to anyone.

I agree with this 100%.

It is a horrible attack on free will that this person now has to live with the rest of their lives. For me personally, I would rather die then be raped.

This idea really needs to die out. No one says "I would rather die than be mugged and beaten," yet that is also an act of violence that denigrates the liberty of the victim. Rape is an act of violence and should be treated as such. It should not take on a special dehumanizing context just because the weapon may be a penis instead of a fist.

I should no longer have an opinion on what I would prefer to suffer? Death or rape. Mugged and beaten is different than rape for some people. I think the idea that some people think that rape is the same thing as being beaten and mugged, and that everyone else should share the same opinion is ludicrous.

You're free to have an opinion on what you think is worse, but you said you agree "100%" with what you quoted, and what you quoted said that rape is dehumanizing, and implied strongly that it is more dehumanizing than other acts of violence. This is a disempowering idea. I worry that we can never end the culture of rape if the victims, the ones who have the strongest personal interest in making sure violent rape is eradicated, are unwilling to continue living and fighting for what is right. You should never let someone else define your humanity for you. As long as you are alive and have your cognitive abilities, you are the only one who can define it. I made the "mugged and beaten" analogy not to start a discussion over which is worse, but simply to point out that few think that being violently assaulted with normal weapons is somehow "dehumanizing," and rightly so.

I understand your point. I agree that you should never let someone else define your humanity and that it would be great if victims fought for what is right to protect themselves and others from further injury. But this is why I feel that rape is at least a bit more dehumanizing than other forms of injury. A lot of times they lose the will to fight and run into so many other psychological issues that they aren't acting in their own best interest or fighting. I think that is evidence of dehumanization.

[cornpops]

fucking stupid question.

if someone is murdered, then what? they are dead. no lasting damage to the victim (from the victim's perspective) because there is no victim any more. no one sits at home, crying and afraid to walk down the street at night because they were murdered.

if someone is raped, they live with that shit for the rest of their life.

[cornpops]

maybe i should clarify a little. it's perfectly legitimate to explore the reasons that rape and murder are perceived through such different glasses, but i said it's a 'fucking stupid' OP because you included this: 'It seems obvious that murder is worse'

from whose perspective?

[Haggis_McMutton]

fucking stupid question.

if someone is murdered, then what? they are dead. no lasting damage to the victim (from the victim's perspective) because there is no victim any more. no one sits at home, crying and afraid to walk down the street at night because they were murdered.

if someone is raped, they live with that shit for the rest of their life.

If someone is murdered they live with that shit for the rest of their life too, except the rest of their life is the 10 seconds they spend bleading to death.

A rape victim can have a child, a rape victim can get married, a rape victim still has a life to live, so it seems obvious to me that, from a rational perspective, murder is worse than rape.

No lasting damage? Death is the ultimate and longest lasting damage.

I think that you're actually viewing this not from the PoV of the victim, but the point of view of the people close to the victim. Perhaps we have been programmed to more easily accept death with some platitude like "well, at least he found peace now", whereas no such platitude can help with the pain of a rape victim.

To take an extreme case, by saying murder can be better because the victim doesn't have to "live with it" you are essentially saying that it would be better to commit a rape-murder than a simple rape ?

[DoomYoshi]

the Wizard of Oz is a classic

Is that like the new code for "DoomYoshi, you're being crazy again"?

[cornpops]

i would rather be raped then murdered than just raped, yes. i might as well. if it was a really nasty attack my 'life' is over for at least a considerable chunk of my remaining mortality anyway. plenty of people commit suicide due to rape. is that not a death sentence?

i'm not saying one is 'better' than the other (unless we're talking about the 'best' way to punish a resistant community during civil war). i just know which i'd least like to have inflicted on my girlfriend or female family member

[Gillipig]

i would rather be raped then murdered than just raped, yes. i might as well. if it was a really nasty attack my 'life' is over for at least a considerable chunk of my remaining mortality anyway. plenty of people commit suicide due to rape. is that not a death sentence?

i'm not saying one is 'better' than the other (unless we're talking about the 'best' way to punish a resistant community during civil war). i just know which i'd least like to have inflicted on my girlfriend or female family member

I'm all for free speech, but a part of me thinks that some people are just too stupid to be allowed to say anything.

[john9blue]

i would rather be raped then murdered than just raped, yes. i might as well. if it was a really nasty attack my 'life' is over for at least a considerable chunk of my remaining mortality anyway. plenty of people commit suicide due to rape. is that not a death sentence?

i'm not saying one is 'better' than the other (unless we're talking about the 'best' way to punish a resistant community during civil war). i just know which i'd least like to have inflicted on my girlfriend or female family member

I'm all for free speech, but a part of me thinks that some people are just too stupid to be allowed to say anything.

that was uncalled for dude, everyone should have a right to their opinion, even if their opinion is wrong.

[cornpops]

i'm afraid "you is the stupid, LOL" isn't really a compelling reason for me to revise my views on this topic. keep trying though. maybe one day you'll be able to triumph in a debate with one of my grade 4 students.

[new guy1]

Well maybe you should propose a better reason then "people may commit suicide over it", as there is counseling for that. If they are raped, then at least they can advocate for other women who cant speak up. If they are murdered, that is just more mutilation. I agree that you should just be quiet on this topic, as belittling another member obviously isnt mature. Maybe you should learn a thing or two about respect from one of those grade 4 students you were talking about, hmm? And also, thats not meant to start conflict, I am just a very tight believer in giving someone their own medicine when its in a case like this.

[cornpops]

most people who are raped don't tell anyone, and even those who do are highly unlikely to do so formally (e.g. to report it to the police). good luck persuading rape victims to engage in advocacy work.

the second response to me was 'some people are just too stupid to be allowed to say anything.' who, exactly, is belittling who? maybe i overreacted a bit in my first post, but if you guys aren't even going to attempt to engage me rationally then you can't expect to read shakespeare in my second post.

rape is an emotionally invasive crime, with a victim who usually lives with the trauma for a long term afterwards. murder results in neither of those things. that's why i don't agree that murder is worse.

[Gillipig]

i would rather be raped then murdered than just raped, yes. i might as well. if it was a really nasty attack my 'life' is over for at least a considerable chunk of my remaining mortality anyway. plenty of people commit suicide due to rape. is that not a death sentence?

i'm not saying one is 'better' than the other (unless we're talking about the 'best' way to punish a resistant community during civil war). i just know which i'd least like to have inflicted on my girlfriend or female family member

I'm all for free speech, but a part of me thinks that some people are just too stupid to be allowed to say anything.

that was uncalled for dude, everyone should have a right to their opinion, even if their opinion is wrong.

That's why I only said that part of me thought that. My primitive urges want to restrict his freedom of speech.