WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE RAPIST?!

I have a novel idea for rape victims. Instead of prosecuting your rapist and seeking justice for yourself and safety for others, just go rape someone else. Seriously. Go drag someone who is drunk or passed out behind a dumpster or up into a room in a frat house or into an empty stairwell, rape them, and then get caught. Because the tragic reality is male judges in this country will seemingly worry more about you when you perpetrate a rape than they do when you are the victim of one.

When you rape someone, the male judges will worry about your future. About how this incident will effect your life forever and more importantly, how it SHOULDN’T. They will glorify every great accomplishment you achieved in the last decade and totally overlook all the shitty things you did, like rape someone. They’ll sympathize with you and stick up for you and give you the support a person needs when noe one else wants to hang out with you because you’re a rapist. They’ll give you a second chance to be something other than a rapist and they’ll worry about your mental wellness and ability to cope.

Just like Judge Patrick Butler did in Austin Wilkerson’s case. A man convicted of rape and sentenced to probation because Judge Butler “struggled” with the idea of putting Wilkerson in prison for his crime. He didn’t think anyone would benefit from that. Sure, maybe Wilkerson wouldn’t benefit from that, but hey, how about the woman he raped? Maybe, just maybe, she would benefit from knowing a man who had sex with her while she was passed out without her consent, you know, a crime, is in jail for said crime and being punished for said crime. But hey, who gives a flying fuck about the victim of a crime, AmIRight? The judge’s responsibility is to the criminal and making sure his life isn’t ruined by his own actions and criminal activity. Duh.

My God, I am so fucking sick of reading about this shit. About good guys who rape and deserve second chances, about young kids who made a mistake for 20 minutes and don’t deserve the same kind of punishment as say, a guy who sells a marijuana plant or a twenty year old that has a seventeen year old girlfriend, you know, those really terrible, life ruining crimes. Wanna know when guys shouldn’t go to jail for rape? When they are innocent. My ex boyfriend of many years past, a guy who was falsey accused of a very public gang rape in college, yeah, he was innocent, and yeah, he shoudn’t have gone to jail, and thankfully he didn’t. But he didn’t go to jail because he DIDN’T rape someone. So why exactly, is a man who DID rape someone, getting the same deal as a man who DIDN’T rape someone? Anyone? Bueller?

I wonder if Judge Butler would be as overhwlemingly concerned about the welfare of a guy who raped HIS daughter? If he would struggle with putting a guy who took his daughter, while she was drunk and needed help, and forcibly raped her, in prison. I wonder if it were his daughter, if Judge Butler would think putting a guy who RAPES WOMEN in jail would benefit anyone?

I am not some bleeding heart bra burning feminist who doesn’t shave her bush and listens to old CDs from Lilith Fair (though I do love the Indigo Girls). I am not some ridiculous person who believes every single rape accusation even when there is contradictory evidence or proof of innocence (see above about my ex who I stood firmly behind even before we dated). But at this point, do you really need to be either of those to look at cases like Austin Wilkerson and Brock Turner, two dudes with the dickfuckiest names in the history of ever, who were convicted, WITH PROOF of actually raping women and getting the same sentence people get for shop lifting a pack of juicy fruit, and say holy fucking shit, what’s wrong with these asshole judges? Do you really need to be anything more than a rational, sane human being to think men who are proven rapists should go to jail with other people who commit crimes? Or do we really have to weigh whether Barclays Capital would be losing an amazing analyst if he were sent to jail for four years?

We’re at a point with this bullshit where I have to wonder when judges like Butler and Persky will actually start putting the victims in jail. Punishing the rape victims for daring to try to punish these good, decent men who did nothing more than rape her and trying to take away his future that he didn’t seem to give a shit about when he was raping her. For putting these poor, poor raping rapists through the absolute agony of other people knowing they’re rapists, and knowing the God awful things they did to women who were drunk or unconscious. For ruining the stellar reputations of these upstanding pillars of morality who, had they not been caught raping someone, would have never had their integrity questioned. For terrifying these poor, good boys with the possibility of having to pay for their crimes.

For fuck’s sake America, wake the fuck up. Stop telling men it’s totally okay to rape chicks as long as you have goals in life. Internships to go to, private colleges to graduate from, trust funds to inherit. Stop telling the country that carrying a bag of weed at a party is more horrendous than raping a girl at a party. Stop telling rape victims that their rapes were no big deal because it only lasted 20 minutes and they weren’t even awake for it. Stop telling rape victims that their well being and futures are less important than their rapists’. Stop siding with the criminal because he looks and sounds like your son, and start siding with the victim because she is somebody’s daughter.