Rape is in full bloom

A scan of the papers shows a staggering increase in their coverage of sex crimes, compared to even a few years ago.

It’s as if, when even kissing a woman on the lips instead of the proffered cheek could land the offender in prison, men, with reckless disregard for their own liberty, are forcing themselves into chaste females on an unprecedented scale.

Some rape cases make the papers ask the question I regard as rhetorical: “Why did this case ever reach the jury?” More and more such cases follow an identical pattern.

Two young friends (classmates, colleagues) end up in bed (against a tree, on a park bench) after a drunken night out. The morning after they may or may not remember what happened the night before.

That encounter is never repeated, and one would think both parties would put it down to experience and move on. Yet months or sometimes even years later the woman decides upon mature deliberation that she never did consent to sex.

The likelihood of such a miraculous recovery from amnesia is directly proportionate to the possibility that in the interim the man has become rich, famous or both. However, sometimes this happens even in the absence of marked improvement in the chap’s fortunes.

One way or the other, the woman contacts the police, the police arrest the man, the CPO decides to pursue the matter, and months later the case goes before the jury.

Meanwhile the defendant’s name is pasted all over the papers since, unlike the alleged victim, he’s denied anonymity. His life is put on hold, his reputation is ruined by that old saw about smoke and fire, his career suffers.

When the case is dismissed for lack of evidence, or when the jury passes a not guilty verdict in less than an hour, the young man punches the air and weeps with joy. The rest of us wonder why this case was tried in the first place.

After all, court proceedings are laborious and costly. That’s why the CPO routinely refuses to prosecute when there’s no ‘realistic prospect of conviction’, in their parlance. In other words, when there isn’t enough evidence to sustain a case.

Rape cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute even under the best of circumstances. Such offences tend to be committed without witnesses, and forensic evidence is often ambiguous or absent. Typically it boils down to her word against his, which isn’t the most reliable method of deciding a man’s fate.

However, one would think that, when the complaint is brought up a year after the event, the prosecution’s case isn’t just difficult but impossible. This irrespective of whether or not a crime actually was committed.

The man claims the sex never happened or was consensual, the woman says it did and it wasn’t. She may be telling the truth. But a guilty verdict depends not on the truth but on what the prosecution can prove beyond reasonable doubt.

I’d suggest that under such circumstances this standard of proof can never be met. Therefore, such cases should never come to court. Yet they do, and their number is growing fast.

Why? Given this kind of evidence, or rather lack thereof, the CPO would never prosecute any other assault.

Let’s say a woman complains to the police that her then boyfriend viciously beat her up a year ago. Witnesses? None. Any demonstrable damage? No. Anything that would stick in court? Afraid not.

Now regardless of whether or not the unfortunate event occurred, the police would never even submit the case to the CPO or, if they did, the CPO wouldn’t even think of prosecuting. Now why does sexual assault require less evidence than, say, battery?

Because the latter is merely a crime against a person, while the former is also a crime against the state. Or rather against the ethos the state uses as a mechanism of power.

The modern Western state imposes its power by attacking tradition woven out of ancient presumptions, certitudes and beliefs. It strives to create a new civilisation on the wreckage of the old one. But first the old one has to be wrecked.

An attack on the family, the traditional arena of sexual activity, is in the vanguard of this offensive. Having taken sex out of the naturally egalitarian context of the family, modernity has placed it into the virtual reality of trumped-up equality, where men and women have to be regarded as not just equal but identical. Rather than bringing the sexes together, this predictably alienates them even further.

The idea is to produce a sexual mechanism of state power by creating an environment in which the sexes look upon each other as rivals or even enemies. Thus alienated, they can never present a united front in the face of state tyranny, as the traditional family always did.

Hence testosteronal male aggressiveness has to be portrayed as specifically directed against women, and even consensual sex is often likened to rape. ‘Sex equals rape’ isn’t designed as a statement of fact or even of faith. It’s a battle plan of modernity.

That’s why our press is saturated with lurid descriptions of rape and sexual abuse, creating a climate where the words ‘rape’ and ‘sex’ are intermingled in people’s minds. That’s why women are conditioned to regard rape as the worst thing that can happen to them. (Worse than death? Disfigurement? Paralysis? Losing an eye? Don’t you dare ask such tactless questions.) And that’s why women are encouraged to report dubious or downright false rapes even months after the fact.

The purpose isn’t to protect vulnerable people but to make all people vulnerable to state power. Divide et impera is the underlying principle.