Who's Next?

Kim posted the following at her blog:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

I think this has a lot of application for Judge Teresa Carr Deni’s ruling on October 4th that a sex worker gang-raped at gunpoint was not sexually assaulted, but instead this was a theft of services. Please see boundnotgagged.com for a virtual press conference and rally today, 5pm Eastern, 2pm Pacific.

Deni told the Philadelphia Daily News that the case "minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped."

It may be tempting for those of us who are not prostitutes to sit this one out. After all, this isn’t about us, right?

Wrong.

If it is not rape to be forced to have sex, at gunpoint, after refusing, just because you’d previous agreed to have unforced sex for money, then who is next?

Maybe they’ll come for those who agree to have sex with a friend of the guy who rapes them? That’s not rape, it’s identity switching.

Or those who agreed to have sex in the past and then are forced to do so at a later point? That’s not rape, it’s time discrepancy.

Or those of us who are or have been strippers? We were willing to do sex-related stuff for money, so this isn’t rape it’s just forced inflation of services.

What if we at one point had sex with a boyfriend as a fun way to settle a bet? Then we ARE prostitutes and it’s back to theft of services.

What if we can be demonstrated to have sex with our husbands in exchange for material security? Then there’s no spousal rape.

What if we are deemed to be dressed too slutty? Then we can be argued to have been willing to exchange sex for money, and cannot be raped.

Per wiki, rape is “where one individual forces another to have sexual intercourse against that person’s will.” This kind of decision says that prostitutes aren’t, in fact, people. Their consent or lack thereof is meaningless.

And guess what? If they aren’t, then we may not be either. This is about all of us.

Who's next?