Re: Rape and Day-to-Day Life
I agree, sex is completely and totally different from rape.
I'll admit that I'm a control freak. I like being in control of the situation at all times, I like holding power over other people, I like directing where the conversation is moving, and most of all I like being in control of myself, which is part of the reason I'll never drink or smoke or take any drugs that might alter my behavior. At first glance, it's the same way with sex - I love tying my woman up and doing the whole master/slave bit. But if you look deeper (yeah as if you really want to), you'll see that the reason I enjoy it actually isn't tied to my love of control at all. It's the fact that she wants to be tied up that I find sexually stimulating, the fact that she wants to be on her knees. In actuality, my relationship with her is completely reversed in the bedroom when compared to the outside world - I'm a very dominating personality outside, but inside she is actually the one directing the flow of events. More often than I'm giving commands of "do this, do that," I'm asking "how do you want this," and "what position do you want."
That's the intimacy that I call lovemaking. Lovemaking is the most intimate action you can do with another human being, in my opinion. There's no closer you can get to someone else, at least if you value it as highly as I do. I think rape is sex, and lovemaking is sex, but not all sex is rape or lovemaking - for example, an arranged loveless marriage. I don't think it's rape - it can actually be quite enjoyable for both partners - but it's not lovemaking, because it doesn't have the intimacy.
So given that, let's focus on rape, the action, not what we may or may not call it. It really is about the power. Even your example proves this. When straight men rape men in prison, it's to assert their dominance and power over that other man, to establish their place in the pecking order. yeah, it's also about degradation, but that's part of establishing control and dominance over the other person as well.
As for classifying rape as violence and not a sexual crime... I have to disagree. Strongly. Maybe it is a good idea for other people, but for me personally, the very idea of rape spits on what sex is supposed to be. I'm an atheist, but if I had a religion it would be the woman I'm in love with, and her body would be the temple I worship in. That's what sex is supposed to be. Rape is like the ugly, corrupted, twisted perversion of that ideal. So for me, something that defiles something that is so... I don't know, holy to me, is far more abhorrent than simple violence. Rape, to me, is an even more horrific crime than murder. For the act itself, for the level of scum you have to be to commit rape, for the consequences afterwards...
My point is, in my mind, rape is worst crime anybody can commit, because of the sexual component. I think if we divorce the idea of rape from sex that it becomes less serious and your idea backfires. What do you think? Is my opinion of the gravity of rape the exception to the rule, rather than the norm?