I posted a followup about this as it relates to the problems of rape claims in the Army.

Of course, the problem is that arrests are a matter of public record, as are pre-trial proceedings. It would be impossible to keep celebs out of the news who were accussed of rape/sexual assault.

In my view, in all criminal proceedings the names of the accused, victims and witnesses should not be released.

Of course, diligent news reporting will reveal some of the names involved, especially if its a famous person involved, but the courts shouldn't assist in this process.

Some years back, a man was hounded in a purely political prosecution and after aquittal in open court, he asked "where do I go to get my honor back?"; this is the crux of the matter. In the public mind, an indictment forever makes a person unsavory and even aquittal does not take the burden off. If the facts of the Bryant case reveal that he is innocent as fresh fallen snow, it wont matter a hill of beans - forever he is now the basketball star accused or rape; his name is besmirched and he can't clean it up.

Once a conviction results from a trial, its ok to release the names - in fact, its a public service; we then know who the bad guys are. But accusation isn't conviction and the accused should be afforded every opportunity to go forward with honor if acquitted at trial.

Dahlia Lithwick is one of my favorite essayists.

A quick Google search reveals that I am not alone.

I like most of what she says as well, with one caveat. She implies that rape should be treated more like simple assault, which I disagree with on two counts. First, by it's very nature the evidence of an assault is obvious. A black eye, broken nose, etc. However, unless the rape was very violent, the physical evidence is likely to be thin to non-existent. This does mean that rape will have a somewhat different treatment from an evidentiary point of view.
Also, she says the penalties for rape are excessive, but I don't think penalties for rape are all that extreme. Data is scattered, but a quick google shows avg. sentences here are about 10 years, with avg. time served about half of that. Considering that many of these are violent rapes who would be pushing the avg. up, date/acquaintance rapes are probable serving 2-4 years for a first conviction. (This is also consistent with my anecdotal evidence, but please correct me if someone has better data.) This doesn't really sound very harsh to me for what is really an awful crime. I have been assaulted before, and I know two girls who were raped, and I wouldn't trade places for the world.

Well Patrick, there are some degrees of assault which are much worse than others. There are casues of assault and battery every bit as humiliating, degrading, and psychologically damaging as rape--at least, to whatever degree you can measure such things.

I think Sheila O'Malley is right to be sarcastic about how we tend to treat rape as absolutely the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, ever, and there's something crazy about that. If someone beats the hell out of you, shoves dung in your mouth, pees on you, permanently disfigures your face, and leaves you hanging upside-down in a tree, is that better than someone forcing his penis into your anus but otherwise not hurting you much?

Having known a couple of rape survivors, I can tell you that some rapes are worse than others, and some people who experience it handle it much better than others--depending on who they are and what the circumstances were.

I agree that both rape and assault come in a huge degree of 'seriousness', and I agree that the most serious assault can be far worse than the least serious rape. My contention, however, is that even the least serious rape is almost always more hurtful than the least serious assault.

Also, I think it's a bit of an overstatement to claim that we treat rape as "the worst thing that could ever happen to someone." The penalties are far worse for many other crimes including murder, armed assualt, manslaughter, etc. As I said...two years for a first-offense, 'non-violent' rape doesn't seem that harsh.

When I said that we tend to treat rape as "the worst thing that could ever happen to someone", I was mainly referring to how date-rape is handled on college campuses. With utmost hysteria. At least it was on my campus.

I also have known girls who were raped, and have a couple of pretty close calls myself, and rape is no joke. Even having a relatively rough tussle with a guy who will not take my "get your hands off of me" protests seriously has been enough to make my hands tremble for three days.

I am not making light of the seriousness of it. I am addressing the academic hysteria which has dominated the debate, making it very difficult to present other viewpoints.

I remember at one of our ENDLESS date-rape seminars in college, one guy, very very tentatively, tried to bring up the fact that sometimes when girls say "no" it doesn't FEEL like "no" to him. And he was nearly castrated by the shrieking bunch of moderators. He had a legitimate point.

There is an enormous difference between a weak, giggly, pushing the hand away, taking a sip of beer, giggly "No", and standing up and saying, "NO, GODDAMMIT, TAKE YOUR F***ING HANDS OFF OF ME."

Girls need to learn how to take care of themselves, girls need to learn how to not be "good girls" or "polite" if they don't like something that's going down. Girls need to be taught sexual responsibility the same as guys. Girls need to learn that cockteasing a guy is shitty behavior.

No one deserves to be raped. But both genders need to be responsible with how they behave sexually.

And on a personal note: I didn't like how those date-rape seminars at college treated men. Every man was expected to have his tail between his legs, every man was supposed to feel guilty, and I hated that whole vibe.

I make this analogy:
If I leave the keys in the ignition, doors unlocked, windows rolled down, that cars going to be stolen. It doesn't make it any less wrong, but you owe it to youself to prevent it. It sucks that that's the world we live in, but all you can do is protect yourself; and if you someday have little boys, teach them in no uncertain terms that no means no.

patrick:
i agree with your analogy.

i would add one thing: yes i will teach any future son of mine to listen to a girl's no.

but i will also teach any future daughter of mine HOW to say no effectively.

that is my entire point here.

it is not a one-way street.

What a difficult question. I think there's something fundamentally unfair about keeping a victim's name secret while allowing the name of the accused to be released. Would they follow that same protocol if the victim was male? Does anyone have numbers on that?

Men get raped too: in prison, in schools, in relationships. For many men, getting raped truly is worse than death -- which is why male-on-male rape is so rarely reported.

In any case, rape is always wrong, no matter what, no matter how easy the victim made it. But I agree that we all have the responsibility to keep ourselves safe. No one is going to do that for us.

The problem here is obvious: sex. There are so many visceral reactions and unexamined prejudices all of us have regarding sex that the law flounders on that sea of emotion.

I like Mark's idea that all identities in such violent crimes should be kept secret; yet how do you make that happen? Legislation? Isn't that the same as secret tribunals? On the one hand, accusations can ruin reputations. On the other hand, we need open government. Would secret trials create the opportunity for abuse?

Yeah, well that's the thing isn't it? Can't release victim or accuser's name, that does become a secret tribunal, doesn't it?

But I think there are ways to get around that. First because it can be voluntary for the accused whether he wants anonymity or not. Second, upon conviction everything should be made a matter of public record.

Of course then you get into what if there's an appeal and... ay yi yi.

It's a mess.