The launch of the Rape-Axe spiked condom only sustains the idea that women are to blame for a sexual assault.
We know not to walk home alone at night. We know not to let strangers buy us drinks. And now we know that if we are to step foot outside of the house in an act of slapdash recklessness, we should be doing so while using the protection of Rape-Axe, the spiked anti-rape "condom".
The condom was developed five years ago by Dr Sonnet Ehlers after she witnessed firsthand the horrific aftermath of rape, claiming a rape survivor told her "if only it had teeth down there". It has faced criticism from both feminists and those worried women could misuse the device to hurt unsuspecting men, and is to make its debut in South Africa in time for the World Cup, where Ehlers has pledged to give 30,000 away for free.
The device is worn by women internally and features a set of barbed "teeth", said to hook on to the penis should it be inserted into anyone wearing the device (though it apparently doesn't draw blood, and so does not hypothetically pose an HIV risk).
This modern-day chastity belt acts as your own personal vagina dentata, like Dawn, the dewy eyed and wholesome protagonist in rape revenge film Teeth, finds herself equipped with. And like Dawn, this device only protects you after you have been forcefully penetrated – cutting the attack short rather than, as it claims, preventing it. Heaven knows what would happen after the rapist has had the skin of his penis torn away – exacting his fury on the already abused woman, rather than walking limply away, I imagine. And quite how reinforcing the gynophobia of the vagina dentata myth is supposed to prevent attacks steeped in fear and misogyny is really rather baffling.
Advocating placing a foreign object inside your body as a matter of course places the prevention of rape, once again, squarely with women. Tips on walking home at night are circulated among female friends and colleagues with the same tired routine as the latest YouTube meme.
Women are berated for wearing revealing clothes and blamed for their attacks, whether for getting into an unlicensed cab or for flirting. The responsibility for stopping rape is aimed singularly at women.
With all the effort exerted instructing women on how not to get raped, shouldn't an equal amount of ardour be directed at educating men to, well, not rape?
Aside from the assumption that rape is always vaginal, and indeed an attack solely against women, the proliferation of unproved gimmicks and useless tactics such as these derails the discourse from the real issues surrounding rape.
The myth of "stranger danger" detracting from the reality that an attacker is much more likely to be somebody you know. The woefully low rape conviction rates and the lack of understanding attributed to rape survivors by the police.
The product is due to launch in South Africa, a country with a history of having one of the highest levels of rape in the world. A recent survey by the country's Medical Research Council found that over a quarter of men in South Africa admitted to rape, half of whom admitted to multiple rapes.
Research by ActionAid produced a report into instances of corrective rape, prolific in South Africa, in which rapists target lesbians in order to "cure" them.
Rather than using the World Cup as an opportunity to highlight these matters and to question the societal reasons behind them, they are merely swept aside with this ridiculous product.
Rape-Axe completely undermines rape and the harm it causes, treating it like a minor inconvenience or slight, rather than the soul-destroying, violent and hateful act it is (not to mention the sheer absurdity of it rendering rape into something of a pub joke). Ehlers might write on the site "don't put what belongs to you where it does not belong", but this is a laughably reductionist statement.
The Rape-Axe website talks of empowering women with the device. Endorsing a product that actually anticipates rape keeps women in a sustained state of fear and sanctions a sort of weary acceptance of it.
Wouldn't we be more empowered doing away with trivial advice and contraptions and taking proper action instead? When will we accept the only thing that will ever truly prevent rape is the conscious choice of a person not to?
Source: http://www.ippf.org/ /
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