When Nirbhaya incident happened 7 years ago, I was shaken and outraged like the rest of India. I, like many others, wished and hoped for public hanging and castration of the perpetrators. I wrote an article Society Encouraging Rapists !!! and gradually moved on like the rest of countrymen.
Now Priyanka Reddy incident happened. I'm again outraged; people again calling for public hanging. Déjà vu ! But one welcome change is that all four perpetrators were encountered and killed like mad dogs on streets (current development as I'm writing this article), though I only hope this doesn't become a precedent to unchecked extrajudicial killings
Hope this makes other rapists think twice before remotely thinking of such heinous and gruesome crime but that's just a naive hope and I know that won't happen.
Within 3 days of the sad incident, 'Priyanka Reddy' video was searched for more than 8 million times in a porn site in a hope that rapists could have recorded and uploaded it. An young doctor full of life was RAPED, BURNT ALIVE and millions of bastards wanted to watch that video to jerk off. Let that sink in !
This mentality proves that rapists as we see in news are only tip of the iceberg while the society by and large is infested with men with some level of rapist attitudes within them. I tried to classify such beasts into 4 levels.
Hardened criminals who commit rapes aren't naive boys who don't know about legal implications. They totally know rapes are worst of crimes and also know they will be behind bars when they get caught. But their criminal mindset, psychopathic tendencies, sexual starvation, over-confidence in their own physical strength and wit or mere negligence of societal norms make them a severe blot on humanity. They don't even bother if the girl they are victimizing is a stranger, colleague, neighbor or a friend. They are actually civilizational epidemic.
It's utter naivete and foolishness to assume that public execution or legal punishment of 3 or 4 such criminals will deter these animals from committing rapes. Killing one snake doesn't stop other snakes from biting. When a rapist is executed or convicted, just one rapist would be less in the society. That won't reform others, period
Numerically there are only few criminal rapists, but there are many more who fantasize and celebrate rapes. All those millions who searched for rape porn video mentioned earlier form this bloc.
If that wasn't enough, there are guys who cheer and celebrate brutal rape-murder. If you see the screen capture of some comments that came aftermath Priyanka Reddy's gruesome murder, you will be appalled beyond disbelief.
Collectively all of them meant the girl was beautiful, rapists were lucky, girls enjoy being raped and all girls must be raped. There are hundreds of such comments, tweets and messages flooding all over social media. When you have time, listen to this audio clip of one of those guys who proudly endorse his comments and his 'ideology' of celebrating rapes.
If provided immunity from law, they all will commit rapes at their first given opportunity. They are sociopaths and potential rapists. And there are millions of them roaming around streets.
Most level 1 and 2 rapists are sexually frustrated men whose anti-social tendencies make them a menace to the society. While they are dangerous and loathsome, their tendencies are more to do with sexual starvation and not outright hatred or prejudice against women.
There is a bloc of pathological misogynists who hate women out of sheer male chauvinism, superiority complex. They can't stand a woman standing up to them. They want to 'teach them a lesson' and show the role and status of women in the society. They epitomize patriarchy and male chauvinism.
While in most cases, these men don't commit rape as defined in the law, they would commit marital rape which unfortunately go largely unnoticed. Some men commit mental rape by oppressing, assaulting and harassing women around them. Though these people don't come under the gamut of law, they cause the most trouble to women on a day to day basis.
Dormant rapists typically don't rape, neither do they cause any direct offence but give credence to all above mentioned levels of rapists by giving them moral high ground through victim blaming and moral policing. These 'priviliged' men lay rules as what a women should dress and how should she behave so as not to 'tempt' them. They espouse men's inability to keep their dick in pants looking at women and hence absolve rapists and blame victims.
Most such men, unfortunately are supposedly wise, learned and senior men of the society. Garikapati's video to that effect here. They believe that a girl who dress to entice is the root cause of the problem without accepting the fact that infants, toddlers and fully clad women form the majority of rape victims.
For such people, rape is not a crime but something men are forced to do because of women's lifestyle and dressing. A man who asks or forces a woman to cover up, wear full pants, ghoongat, pallu, purdah, hijab, burqa or veil is a dormant rapist.
Eliminating the menace of rape could take decades or centuries because changing the entire society's mindset can't be done through some laws or police action. So solution to this problem may not be immediately feasible but as a collective society, something can be done to mitigate or abate the social epidemic.
Proper parenting: It all starts at home. Every rapist or chauvinist would have an irresponsible or anti-social parent(s) who fail to teach him how to respect everybody in general and girls in particular. Proper parenting and correcting him at young age would nip the problem in the bud
Legalization of prostitution: While this may sound absurd, this could resolve some obvious issues.
Legalization of prostitution and access to responsible sex among young adults could change societal dynamics. That could as well restrict involuntary human trafficking because any kind of legal prohibition would only create vacuum for anti-social elements to fill in through illegal means.
Avoiding segregation: Indian society is largely segregated as far as gender is concerned. Due to the conservative societal pressures, boys and girls are raised and tied separately and involuntary celibacy (incel) is inadvertently encouraged, thus leading to some sexual starvation. This starvation could make some boys see girls as objects for sex instead of treating them as human beings like themselves. I know this may sound like promoting unregulated sex but advocating safe sex is more important for a society than penalizing young boys and girls for pre-marital sex.
Access to porn: Banning porn sites is the dumbest of laws any government can ever pass. Porn could be that much needed outlet for frustrated youth who could otherwise impose themselves on some girl instead. Jerking off in front of a computer is any day better than preying on women.
Dis-empowering moral police: While the above measures may help take starved boys off the street, stripping men who blame victims off their credibility is a major macro societal move. Young boys should be taught that those who blame women for their dressing are weak men who can't control their own senses from committing a crime.
Now Priyanka Reddy incident happened. I'm again outraged; people again calling for public hanging. Déjà vu ! But one welcome change is that all four perpetrators were encountered and killed like mad dogs on streets (current development as I'm writing this article), though I only hope this doesn't become a precedent to unchecked extrajudicial killings
Hope this makes other rapists think twice before remotely thinking of such heinous and gruesome crime but that's just a naive hope and I know that won't happen.
Within 3 days of the sad incident, 'Priyanka Reddy' video was searched for more than 8 million times in a porn site in a hope that rapists could have recorded and uploaded it. An young doctor full of life was RAPED, BURNT ALIVE and millions of bastards wanted to watch that video to jerk off. Let that sink in !
Level 1: Criminal Rapists
Hardened criminals who commit rapes aren't naive boys who don't know about legal implications. They totally know rapes are worst of crimes and also know they will be behind bars when they get caught. But their criminal mindset, psychopathic tendencies, sexual starvation, over-confidence in their own physical strength and wit or mere negligence of societal norms make them a severe blot on humanity. They don't even bother if the girl they are victimizing is a stranger, colleague, neighbor or a friend. They are actually civilizational epidemic.
It's utter naivete and foolishness to assume that public execution or legal punishment of 3 or 4 such criminals will deter these animals from committing rapes. Killing one snake doesn't stop other snakes from biting. When a rapist is executed or convicted, just one rapist would be less in the society. That won't reform others, period
Level 2: Potential Rapists
Numerically there are only few criminal rapists, but there are many more who fantasize and celebrate rapes. All those millions who searched for rape porn video mentioned earlier form this bloc.
If that wasn't enough, there are guys who cheer and celebrate brutal rape-murder. If you see the screen capture of some comments that came aftermath Priyanka Reddy's gruesome murder, you will be appalled beyond disbelief.
If provided immunity from law, they all will commit rapes at their first given opportunity. They are sociopaths and potential rapists. And there are millions of them roaming around streets.
Level 3: Latent Rapists
Most level 1 and 2 rapists are sexually frustrated men whose anti-social tendencies make them a menace to the society. While they are dangerous and loathsome, their tendencies are more to do with sexual starvation and not outright hatred or prejudice against women.
There is a bloc of pathological misogynists who hate women out of sheer male chauvinism, superiority complex. They can't stand a woman standing up to them. They want to 'teach them a lesson' and show the role and status of women in the society. They epitomize patriarchy and male chauvinism.
While in most cases, these men don't commit rape as defined in the law, they would commit marital rape which unfortunately go largely unnoticed. Some men commit mental rape by oppressing, assaulting and harassing women around them. Though these people don't come under the gamut of law, they cause the most trouble to women on a day to day basis.
Level 4: Dormant Rapists
Dormant rapists typically don't rape, neither do they cause any direct offence but give credence to all above mentioned levels of rapists by giving them moral high ground through victim blaming and moral policing. These 'priviliged' men lay rules as what a women should dress and how should she behave so as not to 'tempt' them. They espouse men's inability to keep their dick in pants looking at women and hence absolve rapists and blame victims.
Most such men, unfortunately are supposedly wise, learned and senior men of the society. Garikapati's video to that effect here. They believe that a girl who dress to entice is the root cause of the problem without accepting the fact that infants, toddlers and fully clad women form the majority of rape victims.
For such people, rape is not a crime but something men are forced to do because of women's lifestyle and dressing. A man who asks or forces a woman to cover up, wear full pants, ghoongat, pallu, purdah, hijab, burqa or veil is a dormant rapist.
Possible Measures
Eliminating the menace of rape could take decades or centuries because changing the entire society's mindset can't be done through some laws or police action. So solution to this problem may not be immediately feasible but as a collective society, something can be done to mitigate or abate the social epidemic.
Proper parenting: It all starts at home. Every rapist or chauvinist would have an irresponsible or anti-social parent(s) who fail to teach him how to respect everybody in general and girls in particular. Proper parenting and correcting him at young age would nip the problem in the bud
Legalization of prostitution: While this may sound absurd, this could resolve some obvious issues.
Legalization of prostitution and access to responsible sex among young adults could change societal dynamics. That could as well restrict involuntary human trafficking because any kind of legal prohibition would only create vacuum for anti-social elements to fill in through illegal means.
Avoiding segregation: Indian society is largely segregated as far as gender is concerned. Due to the conservative societal pressures, boys and girls are raised and tied separately and involuntary celibacy (incel) is inadvertently encouraged, thus leading to some sexual starvation. This starvation could make some boys see girls as objects for sex instead of treating them as human beings like themselves. I know this may sound like promoting unregulated sex but advocating safe sex is more important for a society than penalizing young boys and girls for pre-marital sex.
Access to porn: Banning porn sites is the dumbest of laws any government can ever pass. Porn could be that much needed outlet for frustrated youth who could otherwise impose themselves on some girl instead. Jerking off in front of a computer is any day better than preying on women.
Dis-empowering moral police: While the above measures may help take starved boys off the street, stripping men who blame victims off their credibility is a major macro societal move. Young boys should be taught that those who blame women for their dressing are weak men who can't control their own senses from committing a crime.
3 comments:
This is put out, I'm sure, with a lot of thought and good intent. It is actually very important, because everyone needs to start communicating more to find accurate solutions to HUGE societal problems like rape. However I have a few points to add to your opinions.
Just mentioning them so you can see that there are different perspectives that need to be heard before a conclusion is formed:
Firstly, when you try to "classify rapists", you should note that there is a deep seated psychological imbalance in most wrong doer cases. That needs to be addressed as well. I say so because, from what I read, it seems like all these 4 classes of people have these characteristics. They don't have them. Instead they develop them. So understanding how they are brought up and what went wrong is very important. Very important because, bringing up children in the right way is key to having a healthy society, which you did mention to an extent through your "possible methods" section. However, it is important to note that none of the parents are given a guide to bringing up children the right way, as soon as a child is born. They try different things and a lot of these things can go wrong. This can probably be corrected with the help of good communication where parents have a chance to think about what better they can do for the child to grow up and be a better person. (You can also read Singer Chinamyi Sripada's posts on that. She constantly tries to bring up communication, through social media, about raising children right without having family/societal pressures and what not)
Since the levels you put out were more of an opinion I wouldn't comment on them (to keep my response short.
But talking about the possible measure you mentioned:
I completely agree with "Proper parenting" and "Dis-empowering moral police". But when it comes to Legalization of prostitution" and "Access to porn" I beg to differ.
Here is the thing about Porn. They might have banned it. But as you posted a thread with a screenshot (unknown source), you should’ve notice that there are so many viewers IN INDIA too. India tried banning porn. In the digital era it really makes no difference. Because, similar to how torrent websites develop mirror /proxy/VPN and many such methods to keep running, so do Porn sites. This was actually what Porn hub (one of the biggest websites) stated as well. Since it was not made Illegal (which would've actuality shown if it makes a difference) access to these websites is still widely available. So, people still get to watch porn and unfortunately they still rape. There is also the possibility that people watch porn to get geared towards a rape attempt. However it’s illegal to watch Child pornography and that should be implemented for rape videos and other similar cases as well. (that 'might' actually be helpful). Pornography is one of the smaller issues when compared to Legalizing prostitution though!!
Legalizing prostitution essentially means creating a way to weaken women even more. There are many many stories and videos and blogs and short documentaries out there that tell how much women suffer through prostitution. Its always essential to remember that a solution should seek less new problems. By legalizing prostitution, we create a huge pool of new problems which again are women centric. Also, Legalizing prostitution is based on the premise of "Commoditization of Women". The QUESTION becomes, why do we need to have a society that depends on objectifying women to improve safety for women?? (Imagine this: If you were to say we should legalize slavery to help poor people in a third world country, “only if the slave chooses to be one”. Does that make sense? Can we buy a socio-economically under protected person to treat that person as a slave and say we at least gave him an option?) Even if we are ignoring all the health concerns and a whole avalanche of events we might set off, in a situation where women are under protected, instead of progressing as a society to give better protection, if we say let’s make it legal so the rapist would go to a prostitute instead of raping some innocent women? That isn’t probably the answer we are looking for. Also, based on your premise that rapists are like snakes(where killing one doesn't stop another to bite), having a paid alternative doesn't necessarily stop them. They do what they do because there is a deep rooted issue than just finding a person to have sex with. They are essentially not taught the concept of CONSENT.
I agree with the thought of finding a solution to rape. But how we do it is important as well. Because we do not have the luxury to test and try a few unsure methods while the lives of our nation’s women are at stake.
To add, 2 most important steps that we all need to concern ourselves with are: educating ourselves as a society to do better and also making sure we hold our politicians responsible for not doing their duty. (This topic explodes into a whole new arena of issues that are political and NEED to be solved where Indians are still lacking. We need to empower youth to influence politics to get better. For instance, If all the empty posts in the Police force were indeed filled up, and the 100 and other emergency numbers were actually responsive like the 911 is in the US, a girl would’ve actually thought about calling the police first.)
It’s nice that you took the first step to have a conversation. That matters!!
@Sankeerth: Thank you for taking time to read and present your opinions. When I wrote about taboo topics like legal prostitution, access to porn and safe pre-marital sex, I did expect backlash but I do believe India needs sexual revolution to channelize hormones among youth and I'll write another blog-post soon about why I thought these are possible measures. I can't agree more about the importance of 'consent' you mentioned though. Thanks again for participating !
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