Morality, practicality, and the prevention of sexual assault
I participate in many a discussion about abortion rights on social media—more, likely, than is good for my blood pressure—in addition to conversations about self-defense and social order, topics that sadly have a good measure of overlap in the area of sexual assault. For the tactical crowd, the obvious solution is to carry weapons, especially firearms. Feminists call for men to convince other men not to force ourselves on others, and politicians recommend a variety of new laws. Leaders among the conservative sects of monotheistic religions shout about how some among us need to wear more clothes.
I belong to the first two groups and have plenty to say to the third—while rejecting the fourth entirely. As such, I will say from the start that if you are engaged in sexual acts with others and wish to quit, your partners must stop. “No” is not grammatically a full sentence, but it is a complete answer. A seminar in moral philosophy could come up with various scenarios under which sexual assault could be the least bad option, but in the real world in which Nazis are not routinely holding us at gunpoint, there is no justification for engaging in sex acts with another without that person’s consent. How much exposed skin the person may be showing, how intoxicated the person may be, or how many days until achieving legal age are entirely irrelevant. And to any incels who may be reading this, you may sing “Rock and Roll” until your voices—and other things—drop, but that remains no excuse.
Is this clear? I am a man, and I am speaking primarily to men here—though neither victimization nor perpetration are limited by gender, and all such assaults are wrong—learn what consent is and follow its rules. This is not difficult, and no lamentations before the court about what a good boy you are mostly and how much potential you have ought to be considered if you cannot follow those rules.
The reality, I am sorry to say, is that there will always be some persons without conscience who will feel no duty to comply here, and there will be more who will try to come up with justifications, and herein I risk criticism by saying that the solution will have to be multi-layered. Saying “stop” and promoting a culture that disparages those who do not is good moral guidance, but in the real world, such things are not always sufficient to achieve the desired result.
One obvious practical solution is to make reporting sexual assaults easier and to devote more resources of law enforcement and prosecutors to carrying such cases through to trial and punishment if a guilty verdict is reached. More than two thirds of sexual assaults go unreported—with fear of retaliation and a belief that the police will do nothing to help together being offered by a third of victims as an explanation for saying nothing—and few that are result in arrest or conviction. Do I need to say the obvious here? Quit clogging the courts with drug charges and prosecute rapists as if they had assaulted someone in the cop’s or the district attorney’s own family. And guarantee that victims have all the medical care and assistance in other aspects of recovery that they need.
But punishment is all too often not a deterrent, as much as it is justified in cases such as these. Thus the recommendation that I have left to offer, namely that people who find themselves most often at risk should equip themselves to fight back.
Note that this has no moral characterization. A person who does not wish to use violence in self-defense does not thereby deserve or invite assaults. I am here addressing such women and members of gender, sexual, or romantic minority groups as are both the frequent target of sexual criminals and are willing to arm themselves to do so. Rapists and the like are cowards who seek to impose control over their victims, and good people have every right to inflict sufficient pain on such attackers as to stop and subdue them. Two good sources to learn how to do that are The Cornered Cat and The Pink Pistols.
What I have said here may open me to accusations of blaming victims, so I will close with a categorical repudiation of any such notion. Nothing here is an attempt to blame anyone but the attacker. It is instead a recognition that as with our efforts to solve other problems—see masks, air filters, social distancing, and vaccines in the recent pandemic—any solution to sexual assault will require several answers. We must shame perpetrators and teach a culture of consent, yes, and we must help those who are victimized. At the same time, we should not force people targeted by perpetrators to be defenseless. Ideally, there will be fewer and fewer attackers over time, but until that number is zero, we must, as the saying goes, recognize the moral superiority of a woman, for example, explaining to the police how her would-be attacker got so many holes in him over the limited moral value of that attacker.