An Open Letter to Phil Brown:

This letter is in response to your column in the Daily on Monday, April 15, 2013, in which you assert that it is better for 10 rapists to escape accusation or prosecution than for one innocent male to be falsely accused. It also takes into consideration your original attempt to shame rape victims published on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, and the often wrong-headed comments on the Daily website in response to your columns.

While the goal of preserving the rights of the innocent is laudable, we could not fail to notice that your letter was not aimed at all those falsely accused of crimes, but rather those specifically accused of rape. You could have chosen to defend those accused of almost any other kind of crime — those headed to Cafe B at 5:45 p.m. who hope to squeak by yet suffer under the jack-booted precision of the parking police, say, or the profoundly clumsy unfairly burdened with a public intox charge after tripping down Welch Ave to get a much-needed superdog at 2:15 a.m. — yet you chose rape. However, rape is not a very good subject for your argument, as even a cursory glance at statistics will demonstrate. We want to give you the benefit of the doubt so we will assume you just didn’t know what you were talking about with rape charges, prosecutions and convictions, and we are going to take this opportunity to enlighten you with some facts:

• The Department of Justice estimates that only 35 percent of rapes are reported.

• Of these rapes, only 3 percent of the accused will ever spend time in jail for the crimes.

• On the other hand, the number of falsely reported rapes is estimated by the National District Attorneys Association to be between 2-8 percent of reported rapes, and this figure includes at least some instances where criminal investigators used the questionable reasoning that a rape was not “real rape.” That is to say, the victim of the rape claims to have been raped, but the men in charge of the prosecution decline to investigate.

Needless to say, very few innocent men are languishing in jail because some delusional woman regretted sex, claimed rape, sailed through a painless court process, and got a conviction based entirely on the weight of her specious, hysterical and hungover testimony. But since Google works for undergraduates dreaming up opinion columns just as well as it does for graduate level theorists attempting to truly understand the world around us, we suspect you probably did know this. Why, then, would you choose to defend rapists?

You bring up the disastrous stigma that sticks with rapists for the rest of their lives. Yes. People accused of sex crimes often bear a stigma for the rest of their lives. Eighteen-year-old boys who have consensual sex with their 14-year-old girlfriends might find themselves on sex offender registries for life. Adult men who rape young boys have a very difficult time in jail. Men who are accused of rape and then cleared? Not so much.

Nor is the stigma of rape reserved solely for the criminal. Note the case of Rehtaeh Parsons, for instance. She is the young woman who recently committed suicide because the gang of boys who raped her continued their abuse in a different form while the authorities refused to pursue her allegation. Hopeless, she killed herself because she could not live with the stigma associated with being a rape victim. This is merely one case — and an extreme one at that — but we assure you, it is representative. Rape victims are regularly harassed, bullied and slut-shamed. It makes you wonder why a woman would cry rape when it never occurred, doesn’t it?

Since you question the definition of rape, particularly those perpetrated under the cover of alcohol, we wonder if you are confused. Let us help: Rape is sex without consent. Period. This is true if a person does not consent to sex, if he or she withdraws consent, if he or she is too intoxicated to consent, or if he or she is too young to consent. If you are confused as to whether consent is given, it is your responsibility to clarify; otherwise, it is rape. In all these cases, the victim was raped. He or she has a right to report the act as a rape, as well as to expect the justice system to prosecute the perpetrator. In all cases, the victim is just that: the victim. In the same manner, the perpetrator is the responsible party.

Since this seems to be a sticking point for you and for many in our community, we want to reiterate this: If a person is too drunk to give consent, THEY ARE NOT GIVING CONSENT. If a person wakes up surprised to have had sex, it is probably a good sign that said individual was in no place to have consented. We don’t see gray areas here. Yes means yes; anything else means no. But if that still isn’t clear, if there are still gray areas for you, then be safe: Don’t rape. If you aren’t completely convinced you have consent, do not proceed as if you have received consent. See, avoiding these sketchy and dangerous situations is really easy! Just don’t rape.

This leads us to another issue we suspect you have trouble with: assigning responsibility for rape. By suggesting that “women need to be aware of the world around them” so they can “avoid bad situations,” you place the responsibility for avoiding rape on women. We who study this sort of stuff call this the “rape script.” In it, men are cast as perpetrators and women are cast as victims constantly threatened with rape. Women have to be ever vigilant to avoid rape because men are stronger and, according to this thinking, constantly ready to rape innocent women. See, that is what you are really saying when you say women need to avoid bad situations: All men are potential rapists, and all women are potential victims. The only way women can remain safe is to constantly and rigorously defend their bodies from dangerous men.

It really isn’t that simple. Sometimes women rape. Sometimes victims are male. So instead of buying into this rape script and the roles it assigns people by telling women to make sure they are not “rape-able” why don’t we just tell everyone not to rape? Doesn’t that make more sense?

See, we like to believe that some people would never rape and that all people can leave their homes in whatever clothes they like and be safe. We know, we know! That is the kind of sunny, Ivory Tower thinking that academics can engage in, right? Don’t we know that in the real world women have to be careful? Yes, in the real world women have to be careful. But why must they be more careful than men? Some people kill other people, but no one seriously holds murder victims responsible for being murdered, do they? No one tacitly suggests that all people need to beware when they go to parties with their friends because murderers are out there. If someone is robbed we never ask if they were wearing a nice watch or if they had a history of giving to charity, do we?

Yes, the old double standard raises its head again. Men can’t be held accountable because they just want to have sex, while women are expected to be morally superior and responsible. By just wearing longer skirts and looser clothing, women can purge our entire society of dangerous sexual practices. Um… We call bullshit.

OK, to be honest, we suspect that since both the above statistics and definitions of rape are widely available — again, Google’s work — confusion about the nature or occurrence of rape was never your problem. So let us further clarify the situation: You do not have the right to shame victims of sexual violence. You do not have the right to perpetuate the myth that rape victims are responsible for the crimes committed against them. You do not have the right to suggest that the reputations of the 2 percent of people falsely accused — not falsely convicted or falsely imprisoned — are more important than the rights of victims of the 98 percent of rapes in which nobody is falsely accused, let alone the 65 percent of rapes that go completely unreported.

If you are concerned about the rights of people falsely accused of all crimes in our society, write a column about that subject. This community could really use a column exploring the position of African-American men, the one group in America who continue to genuinely suffer unfair prosecution for rape and a number of other crimes. Please do not provide a false, specious argument for doubting the veracity of rape victims. Do not dress up your perpetuation of rape myths in a short-sighted and ill-informed analysis about legal tradition. In short: Stop being a rape defender.

Sincerely,

The Members of History 586