Rape rots society
The leniency of its punishment is punishment of society itself, not the perpetrators
Rape is the criminal offence that outshines any other in its brutality and disregard for the victim. While there is reprehensibility enough in murder, the deliberate taking of a human life, and culpable homicide, its taking with undue regard, rape is an offence characterised by the endeavour not just to invade the person but to take feral bodily pleasure from the act. It is revolting in every aspect of its commission; and it is common.
So common as to be indulged in as spare time activity by those in war zones whose primary remit is to eradicate life. Its explosion as an offence by active troops sends shockwaves equal in measure to those of the policies for whom they are the envoys. It's dismissed with carte blanche to killers from states that pay derisory wages and are heedless of its commission: "boys letting their hair down", with wanton contempt trampling underfoot the very beauty and intimacy of the coital act, with society so inured as to view rape as it would rocks hurled at plate-glass windows.
In this recent case in Belgium, it was no covert act done in secret and under cover of anonymity, but was engaged in as a group activity, of which pictorial memorabilia were made and disseminated: an act of bravado to be gloated over, in utter disregard of the pain caused, entrenching its repugnance.
The penalty - pronounced in camera owing to the youth of the actors (victim age 17, culprits 21-23) - is 5 years' binding-over and compensation of €7,500. It is a desultory sentence for an offence whose problematic incidence is on the rise: rape destroys life, condemning the living to hell, a lifetime of hurt, emotional pain, shame, relational difficulty and sordid memory.
These images bear testimony to the act's "memorability". Not thoughtless, not causing innocent hurt, but recorded for posterity as some badge of honour, perchance to secure the reputation of and procure benefit for the perpetrators. I wonder which of those reputations - being despised, or being feared as dangerous, but free, men - will play heavier on their minds in the next 5 years.
The culprits are proffered "a second chance". Maybe they'll grasp at it. But, it's a second chance that the victim will never get.