My morning commute was recently interrupted by a crowd of people crossing the street, waving signs admonishing rape. Ever since, I’ve been left with the nagging question of what they hoped to achieve by doing this. I wonder how many people saw them and thought, “hmmm, maybe I should stop raping people.”
Rapists are a lot like murderers: they’re too sociopathic to be swayed by popular opinion. When’s the last time you heard somebody argue that rape was actually beneficial to society? With war protests, there is at least a minute possibility that the nutjobs who believe murdering another country’s poor people is an acceptable way to effect social change will notice that their opinion is unpopular, provided the people waving signs aren’t all wearing tie-dyed shirts. But rape? Honestly, they might as well have waved signs saying cats are fuzzy.
Of course, their goal could have been to raise awareness. I’m aware of rape, thank you. What am I supposed to do about it? Not even the activists have better ideas than walking around town with signs, and they certainly spend more time thinking about it than I do.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to belittle rape or any of its victims. Quite the opposite, in fact. My point is that rape is close enough to murder that the thought of protesting it is absurd. Think about it: what would your reaction be if you saw a crowd of people protesting murder? You’d probably think it was about abortion or war — you know, something that people have been known to argue about.
I Wonder If I Can Change This Later 