I admire the four young men pictured to the left for creating the product they have. It's a tragic product, given that it's designed for a tragic system in which men go out to prey on women and women go out pretending to be predators but make themselves more and more like prey. Their product, still in development, can be found here.
Remember the furor two weeks ago when a retiring female judge suggested women shouldn't binge drink, since it makes them vulnerable to assault? The story at the Guardian was titled Woman judge says rape conviction rate will not improve until women stop drinking heavily. Christians are mocked for living in the best of all possible worlds, but I find that enlightenment moderns are worse idealists: women should be able to safely drink themselves into defenseless incoherence, regardless of human nature. And I suppose that indeed they should. But the world is not like that, is it?
Yesterday my wife read an article, I know not where, that we talked about for a while as we prepared for bed. The article, written by a woman, was a sympathetic-to-young-men piece about how difficult it is for young men who go out these days. Many of them, it seems, are fearful. They're afraid that if they hook up with some chick who's been drinking, she'll accuse them of rape. She might be truly willing in the drunken moment, but she might later have regrets and accuse them of rape. Even more likely, she simply wouldn't remember having been a willing participant. All she would remember is that she'd gone out drinking, and next thing she knew she was waking up with this guy. Dangerous for these dudes. Have some sympathy, dear readers, for the trouble of men in today's hook-up culture. It's not all peaches and cream.
With all this in mind, and inspired by these four young engineers from N.C. State, I thought that perhaps I could come with an elegant and practical solution to the date rape problem. So here is that attempt.
Let us speak of men and for men. The nail polish is an attempt to empower women, who may or may not be behaving stupidly or immorally, to spot murderers/rapists. Part of the interest of this story is, I think, that the product has been developed by men for women. But how about, just between us boys who read this blog, that we focus on men, without burdening the ladies.
Be here officially informed: this post is meant for men. Read on, o reader, read on, whomever you may be. I will speak to you as a man.
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Here's the solution: let's make it so that any time a man has sex with someone who is not his wife, he can be charged with rape. Maybe there could be a sliding scale, with assault on the bottom and murder at the top, but mostly just rape.
That's it. Simple.
Have sex with an unmarried woman who is not your wife, be charged with rape. Was she subdued by violence? Rape. You get executed by the state. Was she subdued through drugs or alcohol? Rape. You get executed by the state. Was she manipulated/seduced through drugs or alcohol? Rape. You get executed, or maybe there's a manslaughter equivalent for rape where you serve jail time and repay her and her family, as a weregild.
What if this unwed woman were completely willing to be seduced? We'll keep it in the category of rape. Because she was willing, you are not executed, but you pay a weregild, including marrying her and looking after her and her children for the rest of her life, if she so wishes.
This is my revolutionary, never-before-conceived idea to get rid of date rape in a nutshell: all sex with an unmarried woman is rape. Some of it is murder-rape, for which you get executed, and some of it is kidnapping-rape, for which you get executed, and some of it is theft-rape, for which the woman can decide your penalty.
Let's make this clear. Forgetting any of what we currently define as rape altogether. If you have sex with an unmarried woman, any unmarried woman, she can decide if you should marry her or not. Kind of changes the "game". If that's the baseline level of seduction, we're not often going to be climbing up the levels of seduction and sexual assault to what we today call rape.
One more thing. Just to toss it in there. You get executed for adultery.
What do you guys think? Oh, and obviously if you believe that sex is simply an evolutionarily-driven animal urge whose only tenuous morality is connected to the majority's ideas about society's good, then please don't worry your pretty little head about this. In fact, just stop worrying about rape altogether. I don't know why you get mad when we all know that boys will be boys. And be honest with yourselves...doesn't most of your outrage come from the fact that rapey hook up culture isn't that big of a deal? That adultery isn't that big of a deal? That you and me baby ain't nothing but animals? Yeah, I don't think you really get to talk about rape at all. So just go ahead and leave this conversation to the big boys.
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On a less sarcastic note, and in closing:
What I have outlined is actually not at all my idea, as you might have recognized. It is God's Law for his people as given in Deuteronomy 22. This passage is often quoted by unbelievers trying to convince each other that the Bible condones rape. In reality it has an entirely different definition of rape. What we moderns think of as rape is punishable by death. What we think of as hooking up is also called rape, in a way similar to how our word seduction was once wholly evil but now can simply mean convincing someone to have sex with you. The "hooking-up-rape" is the one where the girl and her father could decide whether the "rapist" would marry her or simply pay an enormous fine.
The word theonomy can be a very distracting one. But don't let it be. I don't even call myself a theonomist. I don't want you even thinking about theonomy. I want you to think about this: o Christian, does it not seem right to you that the Law as given to Israel of old should at least teach the Israel of today (i.e. we Christians) how to see reality?
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
Titus 2:11-15And in closing, for real this time, an encapsulation of what most of you guys are thinking:
Yes. Just... yes.
ReplyDeleteThank you, brother.
DeleteBrilliant post is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post is. Thanks!
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