Cara's question: why don't we call rape what it is?

A basic Libertarian tenet: property rights are fundamental, and the most fundamental of all is the right to control your own body.

At The Curvature, Cara angrily asks the incredible important but uncomfortable question:

Why the fuck do people still keep referring to the practice of selling a child’s body to men as “forced prostitution” instead of what it is: holding a child hostage and allowing men to rape her for a set fee?

Selling rape is not “forced prostitution.” It’s selling rape. The rape of a child is not sex. You cannot “have sex” with a child.” Rape is not sex. It is violence.

I don't think this is an issue of political correctness; I think its one of accuracy and intellectual honesty.

But, hey, that's just an insensitive Libertarian perspective.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Legally speaking, it is called rape: statutory rape. The purveyor of the rape (the child's pimp) can be charged with accessory to statutory rape (although I'm not sure on this point), but will most likely be charged with child endangerment, among a host of other offenses against the child (kidnapping, etc.).

In short, I think that Cara's wish has already come true.

February 1, 2008 at 9:10 AM

Steven H. Newton said…

Michael
I think Cara is talking about media references rather than legal charges. You read a lot about "forced child prostitution" in Thailand, for example.

She's arguing that we should be calling it something like "the business of child rape" in Thailand instead.

February 1, 2008 at 9:26 AM

Anonymous said…

Got it. Probably should have clicked through, huh?

February 1, 2008 at 3:46 PM

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here: chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.” The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point: Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo: Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1. Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...

Search This Blog