Pretty sure the impact of rape is slightly longer than 'mere' seconds of the physical act. Regardless of the minimization, is an equivalent prison sentence for a rapist to a first degree murderer acceptable to you?Nieroshai said:
Poll: rape worse than murder?
- Thread starter chuckman1
- Start date
If your the victim then rape is worse. But talking about the crimes then murder is a far serious crime to commit.
I consider a brutal beating on average far worse than rape, though rape has the added problem that both can occur at the same time.
So murder gets my vote.
So murder gets my vote.
I doubt they get to decide that anymore than someone who's had a traumatic childhood gets to. Some things mark you for life and will negatively influence your day-to-day life and interactions with others for the rest of your life.Lightknight said:
It's easy to say someone can just move on with their life, because hey, they're still alive. But would you say the same to someone who'd lost both their arms and legs?
Your assumption that rape is automatically tied to women seems rather sexist itself. If that were the case we wouldn't see such a massive outcry whenever there's a report of a child having been raped. You don't see people going 'Meh, it wasn't a woman that got raped, it was just some 5-year old boy -- Who cares.'inu-kun said:
The reason rape is considered so horrible is because sex is a primal instinct. It drives our perception, our behaviour and our interaction with other people. If that gets twisted and mangled, the ramifications are generally disastrous.
A small, but I think major point I forgot to make in my original post...
It is amusing (not really, though) how many people have an opinion on how rape survivors cope with/recover from/live with being raped and life after assault and I can tell aren't speaking from experience at all (My guess is they haven't been assaulted in this way). You guys make it sound so easy. :/
I am pretty sure if you are dead, you don't care that you're dead. Because you're, uh, dead? (sans speculative religious whatnots about what happens to you/your soul/being after you die).
This is again why I don't find these heinous acts comparable in any way.
It is amusing (not really, though) how many people have an opinion on how rape survivors cope with/recover from/live with being raped and life after assault and I can tell aren't speaking from experience at all (My guess is they haven't been assaulted in this way). You guys make it sound so easy. :/
I am pretty sure if you are dead, you don't care that you're dead. Because you're, uh, dead? (sans speculative religious whatnots about what happens to you/your soul/being after you die).
This is again why I don't find these heinous acts comparable in any way.
It's ways mystified me why rape is considered so terrible we can compare it to murder. And I say that while fully acknowledging that something about it is incredibly traumatic to people and I'm not trying to minimise that. I just don't get why, if someone beats the crap out of me and leaves me bleeding on the street with a couple of broken legs, that doesn't seem to be as bad as rape to people. Yet rapes just another form of assault, what makes it so much more traumatic once the wounds heal? If we perceived sex differently or evolved different sexual habits would rape just be the equivalent of assault? You see animals raping each other without the intense emotional response we humans have. My male dog got raped for a couple of seconds by another male dog at the dog run before I broke it up and he wasn't bothered after.
I'd just like to repeat I don't want to say the trauma caused should be disregarded, rape is evil because we as humans know the pain it causes each other.
Murder is the end of everything, if there's no Afterlife then you are gone forever as a person.
I'd just like to repeat I don't want to say the trauma caused should be disregarded, rape is evil because we as humans know the pain it causes each other.
Murder is the end of everything, if there's no Afterlife then you are gone forever as a person.
There is no comparison between human sex and animal sex.Fieldy409 said:
Animals are on a different intellectual plane and sex for animals is about procreation and nothing more. And the dry humping between male dogs is a dominance thing. They know full well they're not going to make a baby. TOTALLY different thing. Animals function entirely on instinct.
Whereas sex amongst humans has a lot of different other factors involved. Humans defy evolution and nature on a regular basis. Yes procreation is a product of it. But other than dolphins, humans are the only species to have sex for pleasure. Humans invest emotions in sex. Humans lust. Animals don't do these things. Rape is a result of another human feeling entitled to another human's body. Their desire to exercise power over them. It isn't an equivalent to assault. It IS assault. Just a specific type of assault.
To be completely honest, I would have rather had my leg broken and beaten up than have been raped. Sure, there can be mental trauma from that, like I could still be afraid of going down a dark alley or walking alone at night (I mean...as a woman, without any history of assault of any kind this is still not in our best interest). But my leg and bruises heal. Whereas what I had to deal with being raped, the aftermath of immediately going to Planned Parenthood the next morning (because I was frightened and terrified to leave my house and had to wait for a friend) to get Plan B, get medically evaluated, decide if I want to pursue legal recourse, which is another string of traumatic events in which you have to relive the worst thing that's ever happened to you, telling your story to people who probably won't believe you, where you are put under a microscope (what were you wearing? How much did you have to drink? Did you "lead him on" in any way/aka did you have the tenacity to be nice to the guy at all? Your entire sexual history also gets scrutinized. All things that are irrelevant because bottom line a guy had sex with you without your consent). That stuff wouldn't come into play if the guy just beat me up and I pressed charges. And everyone's trauma is different, for me it causes problems in my sex life despite having a loving partner in a healthy, stable, long term relationship, and requires me to see a therapist.
Basically rape is a specific type of assault, and it's a very difficult one to seek justice for as well. It also is a big component of structures of oppression as well which makes it a bit more complex to boot. Giant can of giant worms is giant.
I beg to differ. As someone who knows people that have suffered both the rape left a long lasting impact that hasn't gone away after 40 years, only improved. Where as people I know who suffered violent physical assaults and robberies managed to overcome it quickly. Though, to be fair the people I knew robbed at gunpoint spent much time in prison so they probably were used to this kind of thing.Ryan Minns said:
That's a REALLY silly comparison.Fieldy409 said:
You can say the same about child murder. How lionesses don't have an emotional response to having their cubs murdered by a rival male, and then getting impregnated by said male. So why should humans care if it happened to them?
Because our children take a lot longer to raise to adulthood(or even capable of surviving alone) than a lions children and we tend to have much fewer in our lives? Making a single child a huge investment of resources for us, so being wired to be emotionally super protective of children makes sense to me. I'm wondering if prehaps we were wired a little differently rape wouldn't bother us as much, like if we were more like our Bonobo cousins and sex was nothing more than a hello.Casual Shinji said:
I feel like I should drop this before I get into offensive territory.
Both are heinous crime which incur hefty punishments under the law, as it should be and as shall it ever be.
For myself, why I think a lot of people will say rape is worse is because on some old, medieval and impersonal level we can understand why you'd want someone dead. Outside of a few outliers we can't and don't rationalize the gross and intimate violation of a rape the same way.
CAPTCHA: I'm Batman.....I wish captcha, I wish.
For myself, why I think a lot of people will say rape is worse is because on some old, medieval and impersonal level we can understand why you'd want someone dead. Outside of a few outliers we can't and don't rationalize the gross and intimate violation of a rape the same way.
CAPTCHA: I'm Batman.....I wish captcha, I wish.
Ahhh, optional labour? Yeah, I think there are multiple nations that do this already. I thought you meant indentured labour. Though I'm still opposed to the death penalty. Death penalty should be optional. Everybody should get to choose to die, but enforcing that one must die in the name of the state? That shouldn't be seen as something applicable in a society given entirely to liberty.KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
In the case of people who commit crimes like rape and murder intentionally, what about the person who had their liberty STOLEN by the rapist/murderer? Either way a felony convict basically has no rights, or liberty while they're serving their sentence. Still the death penalty only should apply who present an extreme danger to others, especially with the bleeding hearts around who insist on freeing felons who are convicted of multiple murders, or rapes. It sounds callous and cold on the one hand, but on the other hand what about their victims? Also why should society pay for someone's well being, when their soul purpose is to inhabit a cell in a prison, because they're too dangerous to let out into society? It's not to die in the name of the state, it's to die because they've actively forfeit the right to live.PaulH said:
Though as I said before this should be saved for people who are so psychologically broken that they WILL offend again. Serial rapists and killers specifically. They're competent and otherwise sane, but they're either pathologically compelled to commit their crimes, or they just see people their playthings. It's not right for society to have to collectively pay for them to languish and it's cruel to let them languish their life away in a cell.
The way i see this is how badly would i react if this happened to a family member or friend.
If i had one that was murdered i would kill the person that did it, possibly beat the life out of them.
Now on the other hand if it was rape, i would keep the person that did it alive as long as i could, and torture them every day.
from a purely living standpoint murder is worse, however the emotional damage from rape can be devastating.
i couldnt answer which is bad or less bad, i think it depends on the person.
If i had one that was murdered i would kill the person that did it, possibly beat the life out of them.
Now on the other hand if it was rape, i would keep the person that did it alive as long as i could, and torture them every day.
from a purely living standpoint murder is worse, however the emotional damage from rape can be devastating.
i couldnt answer which is bad or less bad, i think it depends on the person.
Well ... for starters, even prisoners deserve rights. Law should be a shield, not a sword. As they say; "An eye for an eye would only make the world half-blind." The argument could be made that the victim gains nothing by merely killing prisoners. Also, what you'll find is that it's the quality of the lawyer, not the crime, that determines the decision of death of those participants in a particularly grievous crime. So unless one is to enable mandatory death penalties, regardless of appeals or circumstantial information, then the entire thing falls apart.KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime said:
( http://deathpenaltyblog.dallasnews.com/2010/02/victims-families-speak-out-aga.html/ )
So basically it's the amount of money that can determine the end result. Not the actual deliberation of the nature of their crimes or the role that they played in it. There is also something to be said about how exactly it benefits a victim to have their assailant legally killed. You're assuming a subjective weight, especially given that despite how cruel you may think it is ... death is a scary thing. What is more cruel, however, is someone sitting on death row .... years on end. There is a reason why prisoners fight for a reprieve, despite knowing full well they will languish in that death row prison cell.
It is less cruel to merely have no death penalty, and the stability of internment without possibility of parole, than this act between reprieve and condemnation. And yet, most prisoners fight to have that appeal.
I also find your argument somewhat probematic. For example, I've been involuntarily detained. For mental health, specifically. I was a taxpayer ... I had my own apartment ... but because one doctor misinterpreted a psychological stressor and because I had schizophrenia, they appealed to a magistrate to issue a warrant for my arrest. Naturally losing all elements of my self-obtained livelihood. I've never been a threat to society, only a threat to myself. What is the mechanical difference between someone like me 'inflicting' upon society and an inmate? More to the point, is it really better to just execute people who are constantly deemed unfit for basic civil liberties?
It's a bit of a stretch, but it's still in the same vein. Society deemed I was dangerous, imprisoned me, forcing me into a system where I was dependant on others of the community with no choice in the matter. I wasn't in a cell because of something I had done, but rather on the idea that I represented some hidden danger to myself. Infact, your average schizophrenia sufferer is far more likely to be a victim of violence than a perpetrator of violence. I was fortunate to rebuild my life, but I always have that threat looming over me. That I'll need to rebuild, again.
Anyways ... I still disagree with death that has to be inflicted. Especially when there is no good evidence to suggest that death penalties are somewhat cheaper, given the much longer case times, the number of appeals sought, and the protocols in place that bog down the process. And if you are seriously adjudicating MANDATORY death penalties without possibility of appeal, then no. Because there has to be utter certainty no rehabilitation is possible, and that takes time.