More Government Obsession With Calling Rape Anything Other Than “Rape”

I don’t know what the hell is in the water in Australia, lately (is there a chemical known to cause the blaming of child rape victims?), but Lauredhel has yet another frightening story about a judge declaring that the gang-rape of a child was not actually rape. Only this time, the child is a boy, and the judge has made this distinction before the trial is even over. But there are indeed eerie similarities to the case of gang-rape against a ten-year-old female — namely that both the victims and offenders are all Aboriginal, a mix of adults and teenagers committed the assaults, and all five attackers have pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the 11-year-old boy.

The judge in a child sex assault case being heard in the Northern Territory Supreme Court has told reporters in the courtroom not to use the word “rape” in relation to the case.

The case involves two adult men and three teenage boys who sexually assaulted an 11-year-old boy at Maningrida in Arnhem Land over a period of months last year.

Two of the accused have pleaded guilty to sexual penetration, one through oral penetration and two to fondling the boy.

Justice Trevor Riley told the court the case is not about rape because there is no issue of consent.

He said while the crime of sexual intercourse with a child was very serious it was not rape.

Sentencing submissions were due to be given in court today, but they have been delayed because Aboriginal interpreters have not turned up.

The psychological report has been presented for each of the accused and one of the defence counsel, Greg Smith, said the combination of cannabis, pornographic videos and little to do in the community led to the sexual offences.

That’s right — not only another case of a judge declaring that sex with a young child can somehow be consensual, but also another judge who has tried to ban the word “rape” altogether. Though I have to say that the particular arrogance displayed here in telling the media how they must report on a case of sexual assault against a child is pretty damn original.

What’s not original is the argument that this is just what Aboriginal males do when they’re bored — commit sexual assault. Clearly, the high instance of sexual abuse against children and rape against adult women in Aboriginal communities tells us that there is something about the social conditions in many of these communities — poverty, addiction, other effects of racism — that leads to a prevalence of sexual assault. Surely, this needs to be explored. And yet, that’s somehow nowhere near the same as saying “hey, they’re black and they were bored.”

Seriously, how do these people obtain and keep their jobs? Children cannot give consent to sexual activity, and sexual activity without the consent of one or more parties is what we call rape. You’d think that this wouldn’t be a difficult concept to understand, and yet somehow the inability to grasp it seems to run rampant throughout the judicial system. Of course, “Romeo and Juliet cases” (one sexual partner just above the age of consent, the other just below) are tried as “rape” all of the time. But hey, when we’re dealing with children of color who are victims of rape, that’s a whole different story, right?

All I know is that there is a case in this judge’s courtroom of an 11-year-old boy being raped and otherwise sexually assaulted by five older males, and his greatest concern is over the accurate language that the media might use to describe the crime. And that’s pretty fucking frightening.