On the afternoon of the column’s publication, I engaged in brief debate with Michelle Solomon, a local anti-rape activist, on radio. You can also\u00a0listen to that here<\/a> if you like.<\/p>\n _____________________________________<\/p>\n Even since Anene Booysen\u2019s rape and, later, death last weekend, much of South African society has been engaged in a sustained period of reflection regarding the staggeringly high incidence of sexual violence in our country. Alongside the reflection, there has also been much furious Tweeting and Facebooking, as the slacktivists all rise up to say \u201csomething must be done\u201d \u2013 without ever telling us what it is that we might do.<\/p>\n Rapists aren\u2019t going to read a Tweet and realise the error of their ways. So, for all the solidarity that these public shows of support provide, we need to do more. I don\u2019t know what that could be, except for the obvious things everyone knows about \u2013 better resourced police and rape-crisis centres, for example.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not that public debates can serve no purpose \u2013 Lindiwe Mazibuko\u2019s suggestion to debate this in Parliament, for example, could actually be useful. The more often that patriarchs like Patekile Holomisa and Jacob Zuma get to hear that women aren\u2019t chattel, the better. Because that is the root of the problem, is it not \u2013 that women aren\u2019t treated with respect, but rather as objects for male exploitation of various forms?<\/p>\n How do you fix that, even as you try to improve policing and offer increased support to victims of crimes such as these (and certainly, those involving male rape also)? Some of us can certainly set a better example, whether in the copywriting contained in our advertisements, or in the lessons we teach to our children. But in a community riddled with drugs and gang violence like Bredasdorp apparently is, perhaps the best that many children could hope for \u2013 at least in the short-term \u2013 is to somehow escape their hometown, and their families.<\/p>\n In the longer-term, though, I\u2019d like to offer a more modest proposal relating to our arguments and our language around rape. Simply put, I\u2019d ask that we guard against sacrificing common sense on the altar of politically-correct principle, because if we\u2019re not having a full (and fully-informed) discussion about the causes of rape, we\u2019re handicapping the search for solutions to rape. One area in which discussion is becoming impossible is risk-mitigation with regard to rape, where every mention of it earns you little more than a reprimand for \u201cvictim blaming\u201d.<\/p>\n The vast majority of rapes have nothing at all to do with the situation and conduct of the victim, meaning that victim blaming would not only be offensive, but also factually confused. But, if even 5% of rapes do have something to do with those factors \u2013 and are thus potentially avoidable through some form of risk-mitigation strategy \u2013 we have to be allowed to talk about those strategies. Currently, we can\u2019t, because any suggestion that potential future victims should consider risks (and thus perhaps not experienced the crime in question) is shut down with a refrain of \u201cvictim blaming\u201d.<\/p>\n Note the first confusion alluded to above \u2013 we can distinguish between existing victims and potential future victims. If you were to quiz an existing victim of a theft on whether he was counting his bankroll in public, he\u2019d probably feel justified in asking \u00a0why you were paying attention to his behaviour, rather than that of the perpetrator. But if you offer tourists the pre-emptive advice to not count their bankrolls in public, the advice seems perfectly sensible and inoffensive.<\/p>\n Sentiments don\u2019t become true through repetition. We just stop thinking about them, or start pretending they are true through fear or experience of being bullied. Why accusations of \u201cvictim blaming\u201d are not always appropriate or true is because the moral and statistical aspects of rape are entirely different matters.<\/p>\n The moral aspect of rape \u2013 put simply, who committed a wrong, who should feel guilt, and who should be punished \u2013 is easy to resolve. In all cases, the rapist is the answer, and his victim has committed no moral wrong. But rape, like other crimes, occurs in a context. Or rather, it occurs in many contexts, and this allows for a purely scientific assessment of whether any particular aspects of those contexts correlate with a higher or lower incidence of rape.<\/p>\n This is how we respond to every other crime. If you were to be involved in a car accident involving a drunk driver running a red light, it\u2019s that driver\u2019s fault \u2013 entirely. But if this accident happened at an intersection where everybody knows drag racing takes place, you chose to expose yourself to a higher-risk situation than you could have (assuming there were other routes home). The fact that you shouldn\u2019t need to take another route home is an entirely separate issue from how sensible it might be to take this particular route home.<\/p>\n What we say in situations like that is something like \u201cwatch out for that intersection\u201d, and provincial authorities might feel inclined to put up one of those red spot \u201chigh fatality\u201d road signs. What we say to children is things like \u201cI don\u2019t want you hanging out with Seamus” (at least, that\u2019s what I was told). If you\u2019re involved in an accident, or if Seamus introduces you to cigarettes, we could always have known that this was more likely than could otherwise have been the case. Risk-mitigation is, in other words, a standard component of our hardware.<\/p>\n As you all know, correlation doesn\u2019t by itself indicate causation, but it can certainly act as a clue that there is some causal factor at play. More to the point, if it turns out that situation x tends to correlate with a higher incidence of rape than situation y, we never criticise someone for choosing situation y. And when someone knowingly choses situation x, you wouldn\u2019t apply moral blame, because the blame belongs only with the criminal. But you could certainly feel entitled to ask potential future victims whether they are sure they want to visit the neighbourhood in question.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a policeman, you\u2019re not doing your job through asking that question or questions about clothing after the fact, as the Toronto policemen who inspired Slutwalk<\/a> did. Because only one person has committed a crime and that person is the rapist. But you\u2019d also not be doing your job if you didn\u2019t keep a detailed record of crime hotspots, and use that record to advise people of which areas they might want to avoid, for which reasons.<\/p>\n Of course it\u2019s obscene that risk-mitigation with regard to rape asks women to voluntarily imprison themselves, only go out accompanied by chaperone, not walk alone at night, or to be constantly vigilant against someone spiking their drinks. These sorts of realities are an outrage, and the disproportionality of the burden carried by woman is likewise an outrage. Men are afforded the privilege of mostly being oblivious to these realities \u2013 and in many ways, it is men being oblivious to their privilege that allows gender-based violence to flourish.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, most situations that correlate with a higher incidence of rape can\u2019t be avoided. The 2012 Victims of Crime survey<\/a> (pdf) indicates that 17% of sexual assaults are perpetrated by family members, and a further 58% by someone known to the victim. 22% of sexual assaults took place in the victim\u2019s home, and a further 25% in someone else\u2019s home \u2013 areas we\u2019d normally hope are safe.<\/p>\n![\"7cca959a9b6a4e5cad27293a135a06f6\"](\"http:\/\/synapses.co.za\/uploads\/2013\/02\/7cca959a9b6a4e5cad27293a135a06f6.jpg\")
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