rape and sexual assault

Defense Attorney Calls Rape Victims “Whores,” and Worse

by Cara August 27, 2009

Trigger Warning Every single time I argue that a rape apologist defense attorney has hit a new low, I speak too soon. This time, the evidence that there was still further to sink just came at a particularly rapid speed, and with a particularly hard impact. Outside Charleston, West Virginia, a defense attorney defended a [...]

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Defense Attorneys Want Victim to Act Out Alleged Rape in Court

by Cara August 24, 2009

I’ve written about more disgusting instances of defense attorneys pulling all kinds of bizarre, misogynistic and unethical stunts during rape trials than I could even begin to count, let alone want to. But just when I think it’d be close to impossible for an attorney to sink even lower, such an instance arrives in my [...]

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Bill in the Bahamas Attempts to Outlaw Spousal Rape

by Cara August 22, 2009

Until the 1970s, spousal rape (or marital rape) was legal in most of the United States. It wasn’t until 1993 that the last U.S. state (North Carolina) made spousal rape a crime, and there are still numerous states that treat spousal rape as a lesser crime than rape committed by anyone else. Given this history [...]

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Anti-Sex Worker Bigotry Makes Its Way Into Rape Trial

by Cara August 17, 2009

Rape shield laws exist in the United States to prevent a defense attorney from questioning an alleged rape victim about her (or his) previous sexual history. And they exist for a damn good reason — because a sexual assault victim’s sexual history has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not she was actually raped. [...]

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Man Allegedly Rapes Girlfriend Live on Webcam

by Cara June 4, 2009

Trigger Warning It seems that as soon as I think I’ve been doing this long enough that nothing can shock me anymore, the people of this world get even more repulsive. Case in point: a man in Arizona was just arrested for raping his girlfriend while she was unconscious, and streaming the rape live via [...]

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Serial Rapist Convicted of Raping His Daughter

by Cara May 26, 2009

Strong Trigger Warning Sometimes these stories are just too horrible to convey in words.  The rapist in the story below (h/t Lauredhel) had a long history of sexual abuse towards his vulnerable female family members: At the time of the offences, the man had been out of jail for a year after serving 10 years [...]

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Observing and Reporting Rape Culture at Work

by Cara March 23, 2009

Watching random music videos on TV last night, this commercial for the new Seth Rogen film Observe and Report kept playing over and over again.  The basis of the film seems to be that Seth Rogen plays a quirky (according to IMDB, bi-polar — so yay, we can likely expect lots of “jokes” mocking disability [...]

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Speechless

by Cara March 16, 2009

Trigger Warning Via CNN, on the man who “allegedly” imprisoned his daughter in a basement dungeon for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and forcing her to bear seven of his children, and who is just now finally entering his plea in the case: Josef Fritzl, accused of imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for decades [...]

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Rape Culture and Its Incredible Prevalence: A Strangely Optimistic Analysis

by Cara March 10, 2009

When I first read the news at Feministe that a full one-quarter of people surveyed in England and Wales said that a woman is fully or partly to blame for a rape if she wore sexy clothing, my first response was, as it should have been, complete and total dismay.  It wasn’t surprise — no, [...]

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Former Detective Accused of Raping Women Who Sought Police Help

by Cara March 4, 2009

Very Strong Trigger Warning The Daily Mail reports on former North Wales detective Timothy Michael Jones, who is alleged to have raped two different women who were seeking the help of the police at the time.  The highlighted rape is below, and the description is graphic: The woman, a heroin addict, had been called to [...]

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