Rape makes people act weird. It really does. Take these two reactions to the accusation against Judge Siraj Desai.
This first: “I think he did it. I know this sounds stupid, but I just know. I looked at his eyes in a photo, and I can tell.” The woman who said this is a friend whose opinion I ordinarily respect. I shook my head. What else could I do? I mean, from a photograph? Please.
Another friend took Judge Desai’s side. He said, Salome Isaacs was clearly lying, because “… she went to his room, she got him to use a condom. Poor guy! She led him on.” This judgement came from a man I ordinarily respect. And yes, he actually said that: “She led him on!”
I quietly lost my temper. The whole rape issue makes me a little weird, too.
“I am carrying a condom right now,” I claimed. “If I decide to talk to someone all night, get drunk with them, kiss them and begin having sex with them, but halfway through penetrative sex I decide to stop and he won’t stop, it’s still rape. Because he didn’t have my consent to continue.”
That’s how hardcore I am. Rape isn’t something you deserve because of your character. Saying it’s okay to rape someone who’s a bit of a slut is like implying it’s acceptable to murder someone if they’re not very nice. Just because the crime is sexual, doesn’t mean you can bend the usual rules.
I argued less fiercely with the female friend who “saw it in his eyes”. But I’ve thought more about what she said.
I realised why I didn’t argue. I didn’t argue, because I thought, “Why would anyone accuse someone of rape if they didn’t do it? Think about the shame. Think about what the victim goes through, trying to prove it. That’s invasion of privacy.”
Perhaps that’s the key to the weirdness. The crime is so intimate, the topic so taboo, that we’re scared to apply normal rules and scared to really debate issues. We tend to react according to our political beliefs, rather than based on available facts.
Try telling someone you were raped. They don’t ask how, as they would if you said you were attacked and robbed. And should you dare say, “Mine wasn’t so bad”, you’ll often find listeners appalled. Isn’t any rape the worst thing that can happen to a woman? Shouldn’t you want to die of shame?
For the accused in certain circles, just being named without proof is enough to forever blight your character.
It’s an old problem. Proving you did something is easy as pie. Proving you didn’t? Forget it. I know. I’ve been there. And in lefty circles we’re particularly unwilling to defend those accused, in case we’re seen as attacking their innocent victim.
This sometimes makes a rapist of an innocent man. Like a friend of mine.
His story? In first-year varsity, he was hanging around with some drunk idiot who tried to pull into a couple of girls in a field near a Grahamstown drinking hole. The girls said no, so my friend persuaded the idiot to leave them alone, and then went to check the girls were okay. They ran away, screaming.
Okay, he’s a little odd-looking, and perhaps they were genuinely afraid. But I’d say they overreacted. Because next day, a rumour was going around the little varsity town: he’d tried to “rape” them. This thoughtless accusation from a drunk undergrad followed him around even after he left varsity.
Perhaps he is lying. But that would be a first.
Now, in the Desai case, could she be lying? Of course she could. All the events in question took place behind closed doors. Judge Desai could be lying too. There’s no way we can solve this case from our armchairs, no matter how many news stories we read.
It appears to be Isaacs’s and her embarrassing husband’s word against Judge Desai’s. Nobody can win.
And we all lose. The globalisation conference is reduced to the scene of sordid sexual crime. South Africa’s reputation as the global rape epicentre is confirmed. Isaacs’s marriage is tainted by her risky actions, and by her husband’s alleged attempt to blackmail the judge.
Judge Desai is the biggest loser of all. Even if he’s found innocent, there’ll always be that nagging question in people’s minds: “Did he do it?”
Because — let’s not forget — cricket player Makhaya Ntini was acquitted, completely. But every time you see him on TV you wonder: “Maybe he did…?” Don’t you?
Everywhere the judge goes, he’ll see it in our eyes.