Rape

“ To declare that the act of intercourse with a woman who, by the natural instinct of mankind generally, is regarded as old enough for all the duties of womanhood, is a criminal act of rape, punishable by imprisonment for life, can only be considered an abuse of language, and, what is worse, an abuse of law, even if we leave all psychological and moral considerations out of the question, for it deprives the conception of rape of all that renders it naturally and properly revolting. ”

“ Rape is the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will. Every male person of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall have carnal knowledge of any female child under the age of ten years, either with or without her consent, shall be adjudged to be guilty of the crime of rape. Every person convicted of the crime of rape shall be punished by confinement in the penitentiary, for a term not less than one year, and may extend to life. ”

“ What wonder that, in view of all these circumstances, the most extensive observer of marriage-bed phenomena should write: "As a matter of fact, nine young husbands in ten practically rape their brides at their first sexual meeting." Could anything be more horrible, or criminally wicked? ”

“ The long periods of time, the great expenditure of vital energy, and the exhaustless fund of brutality which are consumed by the fictitious villains of the eighteenth century in gratifying what would seem merely a passing inclination, astonish the reader of to-day. The crime of rape, rarely now introduced into fiction, and rarely figuring even in criminal courts, is a common incident in old novels, and as commonly, remains unpunished. ”

“ To continuously tend towards having more at the cheapest price-in many ways an expression of rape of other people's work and resources-means to exhaust not only the object, but also the subject. Rape, one of the most heinous crimes people commit, generalized in political and economic rape, projects sexuality and its powerful action even outside the biological realm of human life. ”

“ I have been told by such that it is not at all uncommon in cases of rape or sexual excess to find that the criminal, when satiated by lust, attempts to murder or mutilate his victim. This is presumably the explanation—if one can talk of explanation—of outrages which would otherwise be incredible. The Committee hint darkly at perverted sexual instinct. Cases of sodomy and of the rape of little children did undoubtedly occur on a very large scale. Some of the worst things have never been published. ”

“ Definition of Rape—Age of Consent—Unanimous Opinion of Experts—Exceptional Cases—False Accusation of Rape Due to Perversion—Erotic Dreams Under Anesthesia Causing Accusations Against Doctors and Dentists.
Having intercourse with a woman by force, without her consent, is called rape. When the woman is not in a condition to give consent, as when she is insane, feebleminded, unconscious or drunk, or when she is not of the age at which she can legally give consent, it also constitutes rape, and the punishment is the same. ”

“ I offer the suggestion of three degrees for rape—the first to cover only ravishment by brutal violence and force; the second all the intermediate grades save statutory rape, which alone shall constitute the third degree. I am no firm believer in the justice of our age of consent, and would leave corporal punishment for statutory rape to the discretion of the trial court. ”

“ Children, too, are often the victims of other sexual acts, such as rape, which in a few instances only can be included in the category of sadism. In some cases force is employed only because the victim resists the act of violation, and here there is no question of sadism; but the rape is sadistic when the use of force is per se a sexual stimulus. ”

“ B. Rape and Indecent Assault upon Adults.
In his work, “Genèse normale du crime”, Professor Manouvrier expresses himself as follows upon the crime of rape. “Every normally constituted man would be a born violator if the sexual appetite could find no other means of satisfaction than rape. The crime is rare, however, and we know why; there are women for the ugliest and the poorest. However, famine may come; there is also opportunity, and many devils capable of leading into temptation the brute that every man is at his birth. ”

“ By violation of sexually immature individuals, the jurist understands all the possible immoral acts with persons under fourteen years of age that are not comprehended in the term rape. The term violation, in the legal sense of the word, comprehends the most horrible perversions and acts, which are possible only to a man who is controlled by lust and morally weak, and, as is usually the case, lacking in sexual power. ”

“ False charges of rape are very often made. The motive may be to extort blackmail, revenge, or mere delusion. On examining such cases bruises are seldom found, but scratches which the woman has made on the front of her body may be discovered, and the local injuries to the generative organs are slight, if present at all. ”

“ Of course, rape is a crime; for it is a most brutal attack upon the personality of a woman, and hence upon all her rights.
The state has the right and duty to protect its female citizens against this compulsion, and does so partly through the watchfulness of the police, partly by providing for its punishment. This crime evinces, first of all, brutality in the criminal, making him incapable of living among human society. Violence of passion is no excuse, but, on the contrary, increases the crime. ”

“ The sin of rape should not be confused with the canonical crime of rape, which consists in abduction, and which is an impediment to marriage (Canon 1074) ; nor with seduction, as when an innocent person is deceived into believing that an act of impurity is lawful, or is tricked into sin by false promises of marriage. Equivalent to rape is the carnal knowledge of a person drugged, hypnotized, or otherwise unconscious, or the seduction of an infant. A person who is ravished is obliged to deny all consent internally, and to resist or make outcry when this is possible (see 2497 a) . ”

“ The law, indeed, seems specially framed in order to enable dissolute men to outrage these legal women of thirteen with impunity. For to quote again from "Stephen's Digest," a rape in fact is not a rape in law if consent is obtained by fraud from a woman or a girl who was totally ignorant of the nature of the act to which she assented. ”

“ A boy of chivalrous feeling, whose blood would boil at any other form of outrage on a girl, will read a newspaper account of rape or indecent assault with a pleasure so intense that indignation and disgust are quite crowded out of his mind.
If, repelled by the coarseness of the streets, the young man allows lust or passion to lead him into seduction, he commits a crime the consequences of which are usually cruel in the extreme; for in most cases the seduced girl sinks of necessity into prostitution. ”

“ As the mental weakness increases, such patients become criminal by reason of exhibition, masturbation in the streets, and attempts at immoral acts with children,
If conditions of mental excitement come on, attempts at rape are committed, or, at least, grossly immoral acts,—the patient attacks women on the street, appears in public in very imperfect dress; or, half-clothed, tries to force his way into strange houses, to cohabit with the wife of an acquaintance, or to marry the daughter on the spot. ”

“ Nothing is more natural and simple than rape among savage or barbarous tribes, who hold violence in esteem and [Pg 90] use it largely, and who, as we have previously seen, are almost always addicted to female infanticide. But has the widely-spread custom of rape the great importance in sociological theory that has been attributed to it? ”

“ The crime of rape appears to be most frequently perpetrated against children, probably due to the popular idea that an attack of gonorrhœa may be cured by connection being had with a virgin or healthy female. ”

“ Circumstance, acting through the agency of certain dissolute courtiers, thrust into the king’s very bedroom the girl whom he loved and who belonged to a class from whom he had been taught to expect subservience of every kind. The tragic mischief of the rape follows almost as a necessary consequence. ”

“ When This Responsive Enlargement and lubrication are fully realized, it is made plain why the haste and force so common to first and subsequent coition is, as it has been justly called, nothing but "legalized rape." Young husband! ”

“ Not so, cried my Lord, [Peers are judges, thou knowest, Jack, in the last resort:] for if, by committing an unlawful act, a capital crime is the consequence, you are answerable for both.
Say you so, my good Lord?—But will you take upon you to say, supposing (as in the present case) a rape (saving your presence, cousin Charlotte, saving your presence, cousin Patty) —Is death the natural consequence of a rape?—Did you ever hear, my Lord, or did you, Ladies, that it was?— And if not the natural consequence, and a lady will destroy herself, whether by a lingering death, as of grief ”

“ Operating within these narrow limits, I find it quite impossible to declare the death sentence grossly excessive for all rapes. Rape is widely recognized as among the most serious of violent crimes, as witnessed by the very fact that it is punishable by death in 16 States and by life imprisonment in most other States. [55] The several reasons why rape stands so high on the list of serious crimes are well known: it is widely viewed as the most atrocious of intrusions upon the privacy and dignity of the victim; never is the crime committed accidentally ”

“ Lynch your negro, and before the smell of roast flesh is out of the air, several fresh cases of rape are reported.—But there is no visible connection between alleged cause and effect—it just happens so.—Yes, but if it does happen almost invariably, we cannot avoid the suspicion that a connection, even though invisible to the outward eye, there must be. ”

“ Rape; that is, sexual relations involving the use of physical force, or a threat, or taking advantage of the helpless state of the injured party—
shall be punishable by deprivation of freedom for a period of from three to seven years. Rape when accompanied by the threat of murder, or the infliction of serious bodily injury, or when committed by a group of persons, or by a person who hes previously committed rape—
shall be punishable by deprivation of freedom for a period of from five to ten years. ”

“ Yes, for that is adultery where woman submits herself sexually to man, without desire on her part, for the sake of "keeping him virtuous," "keeping him at home," the women say. (Well, if a man did not love me and respect himself enough to be "virtuous" without prostituting me, - he might go, and welcome. He has no virtue to keep.) And that is rape, where a man forces himself sexually upon a woman whether he is licensed by the marriage law to do it or not. ”

“ Every case of rape [Pg 147] has to be judged on its own merits. In any case, the medical jurist has simply to state, from the examination of the parties, that sexual intercourse has taken place, leaving the jury to decide whether a rape or not has been perpetrated. A case is mentioned by Casper where a healthy, strong adult of twenty-five years old was violated by a single man. ”

“ Again, the force employed in rape differs in another way, because sometimes a maid is taken away by force from her parents' house, and is forcibly violated: while sometimes, though taken away by force, she is not forcibly violated, but of her own consent, whether by act of fornication or by the act of marriage: for the conditions of rape remain no matter how force is employed. There is rape without seduction if a man abduct a widow or one who is not a virgin. ”

“ If the deceased be a female, whether there be any marks or bruises that would indicate the commission of a rape?—The importance of this inquiry need not be argued, nor is it necessary in this place to point out the indications which may confirm our suspicions upon this subject. We must refer the reader to our chapter on rape, vol. I, p. 416. The interesting trial of Abraham Thornton, for the murder of Mary Ashford, abounds with curious evidence upon this point. ”

“ Fasts, prayers, self-torture, abstinence from business, were, by the authority of the ecclesiastical code, declared to be the divinely appointed methods of expiating the guilt of rape, of fornication, of adultery, of robbery, of murder, and of every degree and species of crime. ”

“ But in fact the bringing up of the victim purposely for the vice is the greatest and most abomi- nable expression of premeditated depravity, whereas pederastic rape is more often a manifestation of senile dementia.
In the presence of a symptom of disease, the most unbridled demoralization fades and its liability to punishment is correspondingly diminished. ”

“ A very favourite one was based on the venerable practice of allowing the victim 232of a rape the choice of death for her violator or requiring him to marry her, with the aporia, “Suppose a man is guilty of two such crimes, and one girl demands death, the other marriage, what is to be done?” ”

“ Rape or compelled rape as contemplated in sections 3 or 4 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007, respectively. 3.
Robbery, where serious bodily harm has been inflicted on the victim. 4.
Assault, where serious bodily harm has been inflicted on the victim. [5.
Indecent assault.] ”. Act 23 of 1957 Sexual Offences Act 1. The amendment of section 1 by the insertion after the definition of “court” of the following definition:
‘“female” means a female person 18 years or older;’. ”