If you read the Wikipedia page dedicated to bull dogs, you will understand why I consider myself a kindred spirit. Bulldogs are normally docile and happy to please. Although low to the ground, they can move quickly when the need arises. Occasionally, they can be willful and stubborn.
That description is me in a nutshell. No matter how troubled I am in my personal life, I try always to smile and spare others the misery loves company routine. I am short but I can run – especially my mouth off. Get me started on topics dealing with women’s rights, and I will talk until your ears bleed. Injustice gnaws away at my insides and, like a bull dog, I am ready to fight.
Rarely am I stumped when formulating a battle plan. I am good with words and my favorite weapon is to write insightful commentary that forces the reader to consider all sides to an issue. Violent crime… rape, in particular… is one of my favorite topics.
In 2007 my daughter was kidnapped from her apartment, brutally beaten and repeatedly raped. During the trial of her attacker, we were told by the prosecutor not to use the word rape in our testimony because it was too harsh and might sway the jury away from a conviction. Mind you, it was okay for the defense to say that my daughter was unjustly accusing their client of rape, but it was not okay for my daughter to say she had been raped by him.
Standard procedure when speaking to survivors and their families after an attack is to use the term sexual assault because, again, rape sounds too harsh. Rape is harsh. Sugarcoating it in misleading language is not going to change that fact. For some time now, I have been advocating for a term to replace sexual assault. My preference is Anatomy Specific Assault (ASA). To my ears, those three words perfectly describe what has taken place.
The only connection between rape and sex is that most rapes utilize both the male and female genitalia. However, like a gun or a knife or a baseball bat, in the context of rape, a penis is a weapon... nothing more and definitely nothing less. The continued use of terms that associate the crime with the sex act are an affront to survivors who are left shivering in the shadows in shame.
As a society, if we cannot protect our women and children, we have failed a basic obligation. Accepting that truth, we must ask ourselves how we can fulfill that obligation if we continue to shame the very people who need our protection. Rape is painful on so many levels. No one can deny that. The fear alone is impossible to describe. The physical abuse is torturous made more so because, no matter how fit a woman may be – no matter how much self defense training she may have - nature did not give us the same body mass as a man. Defending ourselves is almost impossible.
Rape victims must demand retribution in a court of law. No plea deals. No slaps on the wrist. The law must mandate that rapists spend the remainder of their lives in prison. No parole. No pardons.
A few years ago, the Florida Legislature took steps toward making our state the most “inhospitable” to rapists and pedophiles. This past May, Governor DeSantis made being “inhospitable” the least of a pedophile’s problems. He signed into law a bill which made child rapists eligible for the death penalty. My hope is that he will soon sign a bill that will make the death penalty mandatory for all rapists.
In the past, criminals and criminal defense attorneys had the upper hand. Now, fear is where it rightly deserves to be… in the heart of all predators. Power belongs to the survivors – if they have the courage to come forth and prosecute. Laws are only good if we use them.
Until we better educate society – until we remove the stigma of shame associated with rape – women and men brutalized by this crime will remain silent.
A reporter once told me, quite emphatically I might add, that it is not the victim’s responsibility to de-stigmatize rape. Oh, yes, it is! No one can do it better because it is not until we personalize an issue that society recognizes its legitimacy. If we do not give rape a name and a face, it becomes a crime that happens to someone else… someone nameless and faceless.
Please do me a personal favor… STOP referring to rape as sexual assault. It is not a sex crime. It is a homicide – the death of something intrinsic in each survivor. Rapists kill the soul of their victims, effectively snuffing out trust. Freedom and independence disappear along with the ability to smile for no reason at all. If that is not murder, I do not know what is.
NOTE: While making women who have been raped feel ashamed is the primary reason many assaults are not reported, there is another reason which angers me greatly. In years past, my daughter and I often spoke at women’s groups about how to lessen the incidence of rape. Many of those events were poorly attended because “I don’t want to hear horror stories” was a constant refrain. Recently, Jess and I were scheduled to speak before approximately 300 people on this issue. Before the event could even be advertised, it was canceled. Why? Same reason.
I have always agreed with Charles Darwin’s theory that man evolved from apes. Lately, I have begun to believe that there is more than a little bit of ostrich in our DNA. So many people stick their heads in the sand, believing that this crime – any crime – will not happen to them.
Here is a statistic that challenges that belief. Every year in America there are approximately 470,000 victims of rape. Yes, you did read that number correctly! By comparison, there were 4,262 murders in 2022. Did you hear about the rapes? No. Did you hear about those murders? Maybe, not all of them, but certainly the most gruesome were reported in the news.
Do you not think that if rape was given the same amount of attention as gun violence there would be an outcry from the masses? Trust me, no one wants to solve either the problem of rape or the issue of abortion. They are the political ping pong balls that are batted back and forth across the aisle every election cycle. Without those topics… and immigration… what would politicians have to talk about?
Donna Carbone is the Executive Director/Playwright in Residence at the Palm Beach Institute for the Entertainment Arts, where education through entertainment is the mission statement.
Please visit: pbinstituteforentertainmentarts.com