Comment by stone-monkey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stone-monkey | Hacker News Reader

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I'd argue the difference is that rape is on a higher pedestal, simply because it's always unacceptable.

Regarding the slaughter analogy: it's not explicitly about murder, but killing. Slaughter doesn't apply only to humans, of course. Slaughter is typically associated with the killing of animals for food, after all. The difference between rape, killing, and stealing, en mi opinion, is society still grapples with killing and thievery, for certain edge cases. There's no such gray area for rape.

Stealing if you're starving isn't condoned, but people do have more sympathy if you have extenuating circumstances. Murder is wrong, of course, but killing people in self defense is understandable. Killing animals for sustenance is okay. We need to eat or we'll die. Killing animals for pleasure is also okay. I could cut out steaks/Popeyes/breakfast sausages from my diet, but I've calculated the cost of a dead cow/chicken/pig is worth a nice meal.

There's no equivalent case in society where people find it defensible to rape.

>Slaughter doesn't apply only to humans

Rape doesn't apply only to humans.

>Killing people in self defense is understandable

Nobody's thinking of self-defense when they say "we absolutely massacred them."

I think arguing rape analogy is somehow worse than murder analogy because rape is always unacceptable is self-deprecating. NOTHING should be black and white in this world if you subscribe to the belief that murder is acceptable in some situations.

>Rape doesn't apply only to humans.

Yes, and society generally doesn't find it acceptable to rape animals, either, which was my point. As a counterpoint, try to think of the most contrived example where rape can somehow be justified. My argument is it doesn't exist in western society, whereas this isn't the case for killing and stealing.

>>Nobody's thinking of self-defense when they say "we absolutely massacred them."

My point is that there are other cases where the of killing people is justifiable in some way. Self defense may not apply, but that phrase could be used when both parties are complicit in the killing. Generally, you'd use the above phrase in competitive events - that is, two parties fighting each other and one side winning in a landslide. Same difference in warfare - what separate it from murder is the complicity of both sides. Murder keeps getting thrown out there, but again, the analogies are more in line with general killing than murder.

> Same difference in warfare - what separate it from murder is the complicity of both sides.

I'm a little shocked that you think warfare has two sides that are complicit when in reality it's full of young clueless kids who don't know what they're doing. Are you implying that soldiers are like UFC fighters on a ring? That there's some competitive element to killing in war and that makes rape worse than murder? I'm going to argue again that your argument is self-deprecating.

Rape happens a lot in war too, for strategic reasons. Are you going to argue that rape in war is also competitive?

>>Rape happens a lot in war too, for strategic reasons. Are you going to argue that rape in war is also competitive?

I'm honestly baffled at how you came to any of these conclusions.

I don't condone war at all. I don't condone murder or rape either. Like I said earlier, my point is that there are certain scenarios in which western society rationalizes killing as acceptable. There is no equivalent for rape.

There's also the extremely gendered asymmetry of the victims of rape. If you don't want to make women feel uncomfortable and unsafe - stop normalising it by making "rape jokes" or enabling the people who do claiming it's just "their sense of humour".

Murder has an equally gendered asymmetry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime#World...

Sure. So people who joke about murdering people are awful human beings too. I think the point still stands though - in general if you joked about murdering someone, most of the men listening wouldn't feel "unsafe and uncomfortable" thinking about the reality of how likely they are to be victims of murder.

I will leave this here without comment.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/whats-really-behind-indias-rap...

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