Thursday, December 7, 2006

Puta man o santa man

Man's discovery that his genitalia could serve as a weapon to generate fear must rank as one of the most important discoveries of prehistoric times. From the prehistoric times to the present, rape has played a critical function. It is a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.
-Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will

I used the above quote last year shortly after the rape of “Nicole” landed in the news and created a furor. I use it again now that a conviction has been made.

Puta man o santa man…. Whore or saint—neither one deserves to be raped. This has been playing in my head for days, before and after the decision on the Subic rape case and until now. At first I thought saying it in Filipino would sound too vulgar but I changed my mind when I read yesterday’s front-page news in the Inquirer.

No less than a bishop—Bishop Oscar Cruz—was lecturing women on how not to get raped, as if there was a way to get raped. As if rape could partly be women’s fault, as if they would have it coming and could bring it upon themselves because of their way of dressing or behaving. Because it is but natural for men to respond by raping? Come on. Hello? I could feel blood rising to my face.

I’m glad the Inquirer gave the quote prominence because it showed how many men, a bishop among them, still regard women, that is, as temptresses. “Womanhood is precious and noble, so it is not right for them to be flaunting it around.” That’s what the bishop said. Flaunt? Otherwise they could be raped? Should women be always fearful that the way they carry their womanhood could result in violence against their person?

Not that I approve of everything that women do with their bodies and of their distracting way of dressing in certain occasions. But I don’t wish that the celebrities who have three-fourths of their quivering mammary blobs exposed would be raped, mashed or groped. Sure, certain behaviors could have negative consequences. Like if you sit on a ledge of a building you could fall but this does not mean someone should push you to your death.

Rape is no longer a ``private crime.’’ The Anti-Rape Law of 1997 classifies rape as ``a crime against persons’’. For a long time rape was considered merely as ``a crime against chastity’’. This seemed to suggest that persons who were unchaste were fair game.

Defense lawyers who dredge up the sexual reputation of rape victims and cast aspersions on their morality to bolster their defense of the accused should know this strategy could boomerang on them.

Last year, when the Inquirer carried the banner headline that Nicole was not, repeat, not, a sex worker, women’s groups reacted strongly because the headline seemed to suggest that if Nicole was in fact one she was fair game. (The headline was a response to those who wondered what she was.)

The crime of rape should have nothing to do with the chastity of the victim. Rape is not merely a sexual offense or a crime against chastity but a crime against persons and against the State. As one feminist lawyer had said, ``Rape is not a crime against the hymen. It is a crime against the whole person.’’ It is a crime of the strong against the weak, a crime of conquest. Speaking of conquest, the Subic rape case took on a political color because the accused were citizens of a former colonizing nation who still throws its weight around.

Did you see that burly American who was throwing his weight around to shelter Lance Corporal Daniel Smith after his conviction? But our policemen were there to do their job. He even tried to stop the media from following in a car. I wish someone had yelled at him, “You, (@#&!*>) American, you are on Philippine soil!” I wish our police had pinned him down but they seemed intimidated. Dinaan sa laki.

Smith did not deny he had sex with Nicole, but it was consensual, he insisted. Well, that’s what rapists always say—that their victims wanted it and so why are they crying rape? That’s what 91-year-old American Jesuit Fr. James Reuter, a revered figure in these islands, is stressing again and again. That it was consensual sex as Smith alleged. This makes Nicole a liar. Had he talked to Nicole?

I find Reuter’s interventions so pathetic. The most he could have done was simply to listen to what Smith had to confess (whether or not Smith is a Catholic) and give it the seal of confession. In contrast, the Filipino Protestant pastor who had been regularly ministering to Smith and the other accused simply stuck to the spiritual and left the legal to the lawyers and the judge.

The other night there was this news on TV about a big box that was dumped beside the road. When a poor man opened it he found a whole human body inside it. That’s what the US servicemen did to Nicole. They dumped her on the pavement, with her pants worn the wrong way and with a used condom hanging somewhere. Is that how consensual sex is supposed to end? And then they zoomed off to their waiting ship like felons fleeing the scene of a crime.

What woman in her proper mind (Nicole was drunk) would consent to be carried out of a club on the back of a man and into a van, and in the presence of five or six other men, have sex with one of them while the vehicle was moving? And when it was over, be dumped on the side of the road, looking disheveled and dazed?

Last year Sen. Francis Pangilinan said that 3,000 rape cases against Americans have been dismissed in the Olongapo City court. Smith’s conviction in Makati is a first.
Congratulations to Nicole’s lawyers.