Then everything includes itself in power,

Power into will, will into appetite;

And appetite a universal wolf.

– Shakespeare,Truilus and Cressida, 1, 3

Those four letters perhaps make up the most awful four-letter word in the English language — rape. And don’t be misled, rape is not about sex, but rather about power. And as the quote said, ‘power into will, will into appetite, and appetite a universal wolf.’

I’m sure we all know how ravenous a wolf’s appetite is as it hunts and gorges until it is satisfied, and then it hunts and feeds again. It is insatiable, and the term ‘to wolf down the meal’ means to nyam it down savagely and ravenously, with no finesse. Well, some rapists are the same.

But rape is not as simple as that, as there are complexities in the law, the emotion, the motives, the victims, and the perpetrators. “She seh mi rape her, but is she give mi willingly, your Honour.”

We’ll delve into the sordid, sexual, salacious, sleazy world of rape, right after these responses to ‘Mad as shad’.

Hi Tony,

It was believed that smoking too much ganja could make you mad, which reminds me of the word ‘tangent’ used back in the day to disguise madness or odd behaviour, as in, ‘him smoke weed and turn tangent’. The word ‘mad’ is also used to describe anger, which is a temporary state of insanity itself. The woman smashing the car in the Clovis cartoon appears very angry, obviously made mad by the car’s owner.

Cecil

Anthony,

Mental illness has been around from the beginning of time. Even animals go insane, and a dog with rabies goes totally mad. In modern times, the symptoms are often less subtle than that of the cliché mad person eating out of a garbage bin. Now there are so many names given to different degrees of insanity, and the treatment ranges from therapy to drugs. But the truth is mad is just mad.

Simone

When I see the crime statistics and hear the cops reel off the instances of crimes, such as housebreaking being down, murder is down in some parishes, larceny is down, one crime that’s consistent is rape. Rape, sexual assault and carnal abuse are never down. Those are crimes with tangible victims, and they’re very personal.

Rape is very real, both for the victim and the perpetrator, as they come into such close contact with each other. But what is rape though, and is it the same in all societies? Well, rape is defined as the forced sexual act upon one person by another against his or her will. That’s right, men are raped too, mostly by other men, but in some cases by women.

It’s often so difficult to prove and unfortunately many victims are blamed for being raped. “Is because she dress so sexy why dem rape her.” In some Eastern countries, women who have been raped were either killed by their relatives in an honour killing or forced to marry the rapist. Here in the West, many victims are treated as if they are the ones who did the crime and are put through the wringer by lawyers in court. That’s why many rapes go unreported.

When men rape, it’s to exercise control and power over another person. By so doing, they subjugate the victim and take away their most precious possession, their dignity. Some would say that life is the most prized possession, but rape victims have been known to commit suicide after living with the shame and stigma for years.

Rape is just not the act of hold down and tek weh as many people think, but there is also date rape, where a woman goes out with a man and he has sex with her against her will. Sometimes she doesn’t even know that she’s being raped, as date rape drugs now flood the market. “Just slip it in her drink and she won’t know what clock striking after that.”

Perhaps the most common crime clogging our judicial system is rape, as for some reason that only the sociologists can explain, so many young men are being tried for the act. Even so, it’s often very difficult to prove as, in many cases, it’s her word against his. Sometimes her words aren’t true.

In the same way that men rape to exhibit power, some women accuse men of rape, to show theirs. “Just watch me and you. I going tell them say you rape me so that them lock you up.” The reasons are varied, but the chief one is usually revenge for being spurned. “Him use mi and leff mi, that’s why I tell people say him rape mi.” Crying wolf and crying rape are not the same thing.

It’s then up to the courts to prove if it was consensual sex or rape. Which begs the question, ‘Can a prostitute be raped?’ After all, she has sex with thousands of men every year, so why should one be singled out for raping her? Also, in some instances, the girl agrees to have sex with three men, but not four, so that fourth guy is singled out as a rapist.

Then there are times when the sex act actually starts, but the woman says she wants to stop, but the man has no brakes. He doesn’t get a break when she cries rape. It can get so complicated. The law says that if the man has sex with a woman against her will, it’s rape, so even prostitutes who say no can be raped, or women who will take three men but not four can be raped, and even women who want to stop before time can be raped. In some states in the USA, wives can be raped. Absurd or just?

There is the question of punishment for those women who accuse men of rape and then the men are found to be not guilty. In some instances the woman recants her story and says that it really wasn’t true, but that she was angry with the man. It must have been a terrible ordeal for those men to have suffered, being accused of a crime they didn’t commit. Shouldn’t those women who made the false accusations be punished?

Instead, they simply walk out of court and go home with not even a slap on the wrist for pubic mischief, that’s right, pubic mischief.

Now DNA is proving the guilt of many men who rape, but it’s also proving the innocence of others. Some don’t even need DNA. “Your Honour, I have been impotent for years now, so no way could I have raped her.”

At times the guilty men get nothing more than a slap on the wrist and leave the court smiling. I recently saw this case in the USA of a young man who was found guilty of raping this young woman behind a garbage dumpster. He got six months, but only served three months in prison. The parents of the victim are mortified and are lobbying for the judge to be removed.

Other men of a darker hue have not been so lucky and have had to spend decades in prison. Many are guilty, but some were innocent and released after serving a very long time, thanks to DNA again.

But donkey seh the world nuh level, and it all depends on who’s doing the raping and who the victim is. Puss and dawg don’t have de same luck. The truth is, rape is a terrible act, whether it is the subtle type such as the popular date rape, or the violent hold dung and tek weh act, sometimes performed by multiple perpetrators, as in gang rape.

Even college campuses aren’t safe, as studies have shown that over 40 per cent of young women are raped in US colleges every year. Institutions of higher learning but low moral standards?

Some men see it as their right to violate women in this way. For others, it’s a rite of passage as it heralds their ascension to manhood. There are people who cry for more severe punishment for serial rapists, such as castration or that they be given a drug that induces permanent impotence. Some even clamour for execution.

People feel strongly about it because it’s a heinous crime, but the challenge is proving it. More time.

seido1@hotmail.com

Footnote: I was hearing a young lady speak on the radio about the benefits of massage therapy and it piqued my interest. It was mentioned how important it is to people and, in particular, our super athletes such as Usain Bolt and others who swear by it. Bolt has his personal masseuse who massages him regularly before his training and before his track exploits. Well, I met this authentic Chinese man named Haolin Chen, who deals in the ancient art of Chinese massage. I have felt and witnessed it myself, as he came to my martial arts class and worked miracles with me and my students. Massage does work.