When we went over rape in our criminal law class, I made a comment about the role gender plays in our society in determining the definition of "rape". While I still believe in the truth of my comment, I realized immediately that I had not made any friends because of it. I could hear whispers around me and I knew that many thought I had crossed some sort of line. My comment was fairly benign, but many of my classmates still saw it as insensitive and possible chauvinistic.

I am not writing this to try to vindicate my comment. My frustration is because the topic of rape was such an emotional issue that there was no room, even within the halls of an academic institution as prestigious as Columbia Law School, to discuss the topic in an academic manner. I felt like even considering defending the side of the alleged rapist was an obvious taboo, something to be hidden like an unconscious racist assumption. The law is supposed to be inherently unemotional, but people refuse to treat it as such when discussing this specific topic.

My question is why? Why did my classmates refuse to see both sides of the issue, as we do for every other issue? Why do we make such topics so personal even when we are trying to look at them as lawyers? How do we remove ourselves to make sure that justice, rather than emotional judgment prevails? (although the two are not mutually exclusive).

I believe that the underlying social structures that affected the rape discussion also control discussion of sensitive subjects such as race and sexual preference. Until we eliminate these unnecessary obstructions to creative and realistic thought, we will never be truly free to consider the issues as we were meant to.

-- MikeAbend - 04 Apr 2010

Because I am not familiar with the case you're referring to or the comment you made, I can only speculate as to why your comment generated an "emotional" response. 1 in 6 women (to speak nothing of male victims) have experienced attempted or actual rape in this country. Talking about rape may trigger PTSD. Furthermore, in a culture where victim-blaming is often considered acceptable, it's certainly a topic that makes people defensive. But I don't think defending an alleged rapist is taboo; the right to counsel and fair trial extends to this group of defendants as well.

-- EricaSelig - 04 Apr 2010