I donât have any answers, but I agree it should be talked about more. Specifically, the two main answers Iâve seen people in leftist spaces come up with that arenât prison or TJ/RJ are:
- one group of people agrees to socially shun a rapist or sex creep and stop allowing them in shared spaces. however, this can mean the person just finds a new social group who arenât aware of their history and begins sexually predatory behavior within that new group. (this is basically the one situation I can think of where I approve of call out postsâ a means by which it is in fact possible to make life a little more difficult for people who have a history and repeating pattern of abusing others, moving on to new scenes and new victims whenever theyâre caught, threatened, shunned, etc).
- If not shunning, then people tend to go for âstring em up!!!â & to clarify, I have no problem with that as, like, an emotional attitude someone might have towards a person who abused them or a loved one. but I really donât think I need to explain why ârandom vigilantes go around jumping and murdering anyone whoâs been accused of rape (or other âsufficiently badâ abuses)â would be an extremely poor system. Even if this could somehow be limited only to people who definitely actually did what they were accused of doing, it puts many survivors in a shitty position not terribly different from todayâsâ I donât WANT my rapists to get murdered (or raped themselves, or put in prison for decades), and never have, but I do want them to face consequences. Given the choice between someone facing cruelly disproportionate punishment or not experiencing any real consequences, Iâll almost always choose the latter. But that doesnât mean I like it or am happy about it, and I think people who have a more emotionally complicated relationship with their assailant or abuser, or who just arenât very bloodthirsty, deserve a satisfying outcome to their situation just as much as your Inigo Montoya types.
also, if it were the case that rapists &c typically got murdered by a mob of angry townsfolk upon the revelation of what theyâd done, weâd start seeing so, so, so many more rape-murders (&c) in cases where previously the offender wouldnât have ever killed anybody. if you think someone will, effectively, kill you by telling on you, it makes sense to shut them up first, and weâre talking here about people who have already shown they can be violent and cavalier about other peopleâs lives.
- returning to the first bullet point, in cases where someone is not habitually predatory or violent or abusive, and seems genuinely remorseful or clueless that they did anything wrong, I think shaming and the loss of valued personal relationships ARE pretty good tools for making sure the offender experiences consequences that dissuade them from rationalizing their behavior as okay or ever behaving in a similar way again. I think ideally this is paired with some kind of support in addressing the issues that led to whatever it was they didâ maybe this guy needs to learn that women are actual autonomous humans and thereâs no situation on Earth in which heâs entitled to a girlâs affection, maybe this girl needs to learn that sexual harassment a woman does to a man isnât cute/funny/harmless/girlboss behavior, maybe this person needs to refrain from close relationships and sex with others until they unpack the twisted lessons about consent they learned as a child, maybe that person needs to quit drinking and doing drugs. But then that of course also raises the question of âhow should that support be given, and by whom.â Which: again, I donât know. Ideally, thatâs meant to be a function of TJ, but Iâm not sure anyone has ever agreed on the how/by whom question.
blakekathryn
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annaxmalina
turnnoffyourmind
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