So I’m a bit late to the party but in 2015, the Chicago Sun Times published what is officially the douchiest editorial ever. By Mary Mitchell, it took exception to the rape of a sex worker being characterised as such and prosecuted because it’s “making a mockery of rape victims”. Here are some choice excerpts so you don’t have to read the original charmingly entitled Rape Case Sends Mixed Messages on Prostitution.
I don’t have one iota of sympathy for Akins’ [the alleged perp’s] plight. But I’m grateful he isn’t being accused of snatching an innocent woman off the street.
It’s tough to see this unidentified prostitute as a victim. And because this incident is being charged as a criminal sexual assault — when it’s actually more like theft of services — it minimizes the act of rape.
Earlier this month, we saw what a rape victim looks like. Melissa Schuster, 26, of Willowbrook, was stabbed 17 times and suffered a fractured nose, broken bones and eye injuries when she was raped by a man who broke into her home after demanding cash.
For law enforcement to put what happened to a Backpage.com prostitute on a par with rape victims like Schuster is an insult.
Now, the pushback was swift and you can read many examples of counter-editorials.
I don’t need to write any more about how awful that editorial was, but I’d like to use this as a chance to discuss the “theft of services” angle. Especially since this “theft of services” thing has come up before. Now, rape apologists loooove them some shitty analogies. So here are some less tenuous analogies instead (none of the pronouncements are based on any specific criminal code, IANAL):
- If you withhold wages from your employee, that’s theft of services; if you force them to work for you, take away their passport, threaten them etc, that’s slavery.
- If you commission a painting and then run away with it, that’s theft of services; if you threaten an artist at gunpoint to force them to paint your painting that’s kidnapping.
- If you hire extras for a photo shoot and your cheque bounces and you don’t rectify the situation, that’s theft of services; if you bring them to the shoot against their will, that’s kidnapping.
- If you hire a sex worker to be spanked and don’t pay them, that’s theft of services; if they don’t want to go through with it and you spank them, that’s assault.
- If you set up a professional Muay Thai fight and renege on a fighter’s fee, they may sue you for theft of services/breach of contract; if they change their mind and you don’t let them leave the ring so he or she gets pummelled by the other fighter, that’s assault.
- If you hire a sex worker and afterwards leave without paying, that and only that is theft of services/breach of contract.
What do these examples (some of which are admittedly outlandish) have in common? Consent. Which is the only thing relevant to whether something is rape and the only thing that rape apologists will remain wilfully ignorant of.
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