We all seem to be on the same page about how horrifically stupid, sexist, and misogynist were Rep. Akin's remarks about "legitimate rape". No question that, on its face, there is a responsibility for him to unequivocally apologize and sincerely recant...however improbable or impossible that he could or would.
But if he were to do that in the next hour, the contamination of the discourse on rape has already occurred. Even men whom I know "know better" have fallen into lapses of language and judgment that unwittingly support erroneous myths about rape. One normally thoughtful fellow wrote me the following in response to some of my objections to Akin's comment:
"I think Akins was trying to make a distinction between 1) an actual rape, as opposed to, 2) one of thousands of false claims of rape...". (emphasis mine) I responded with the following:
"I would not disagree [that this may have been Akin's intended distinction], but his comment suggests that perhaps he thinks that whether the incident results in pregnancy would be a post-facto way to determine which of those two options occurred (if she got pregnant, then she must have 'wanted it')
"Secondly, regardless of his intent, his careless statement opens up a whole language of rape denial by fostering a distinction between "legitimate" and "illegitimate" rape. "Legitimate" is a positive value-laden word, and its use suggests that the more that the act was a violation of the woman's choice the BETTER the rape. For men who contemplate rape, this language lowers the bar to take action by suggesting to the unconscious mind that what he is thinking about is somehow "legitimate". Twisted? Yes. But real: words shape thoughts, thoughts support actions. (Think "one more LITTLE piece of pizza won't hurt!")
"Thirdly, I wonder if a more fair presentation of the distinction presented in your comment (not an attack, but a lifting of consciousness) would be: "1, one of thousands of actual rapes, opposed to 2, one of thousands of false reports of rape..." The use of "thousands" in only scenario 2 implies that false reports overwhelmingly outnumber actual rapes. In fact, they do not. Every well-conducted study indicates that a far greater number of women keep a real rape experience secret than the number of those who falsely report; and a substantial number of those who do falsely report do on more than one occasion, skewing the statistics to make the number of women who falsely report appear more numerous."
The friend then took a moment to reflect and realized that he knew of two women who had been raped, neither of which reported the attack for reasons of shame or fear; he had never known anyone who falsely reported rape, nor anyone who had been falsely accused of rape. Still, he had unconsciously adopted the good-ol'-boy way of framing the issue that perpetuates the lie that false ("illegitimate") rape reports are rampant and far outnumber actual rapes.
A decade ago, I trained for the Sexual Assault Response Team in a major city in California. The process of reporting and documenting a rape is itself so traumatic that very few women would falsely report, and the vast majority of false claims fall apart in the process.
For fifteen years I have facilitated Violence Cessation groups for men who committed Domestic Violence. Even among this population, many more men admit to committing rapes and other unwelcome sexual acts than do claim that they are falsely accused. They will claim other false accusations were made against them, but very rarely that a rape of sexual assault charge was bogus.
I suspect that the reason even men of awareness and good conscience will make the kind of error my friend did - he "misspoke", Mr. Akin; you meant what you said and said what you meant - is that the deceptive language of misogyny and oppression is such a constant buzz that it motivates even good men into repeating it.
I hope that this and the many other excellent postings on Kos, FB, Twitter, and other media will help provide some "mental floss" to help us keep our thinking and our talk on a higher, more progressive and less oppressive level. Free our speech, and we may just free our thoughts, too.