If anyone picks up a copy of November’s issue of Marie Claire they would know that this fashion magazine is starting to become filled with news bulletins that go outside of its comfort level.
In a section that would likely go unnoticed lies probably the most disturbing bit of news amongst the pages of news of Paris fashion week and Chanel advertisements.
A woman in South Africa has dedicated forty years of her life to developing her new product, which will be marketed as the Rape-aXe. The Rape-aXe is a tool designed to prevent the occurrence of rape and change the environment that South African women live in.
The article claims that one out of two South African women will be raped during her lifetime. When 50 percent of the female population is doomed to such a fate, Sonnet Ehlers thought it was time to step in.
According to Ehlers, the Rape-aXe is described as a device that, “Inserts like a tampon…It is soft, leakproof and smooth on the outside so it causes no damage to her.” Once it is attached to its victim, the only method of removing it is with surgery, so the rapist would have to call and admit his crime to the police.
Ehlers plans on distributing the Rape-aXe worldwide. Being such a controversial prevention tool in South Africa, the thought of selling this worldwide would cause debates and Ehlers might have to postpone her plan.
It is great to see progress among women in the fight to be taken seriously for once, but is the Rape-aXe a joke? It feels more like a hidden bear trap rather than a brave defense mechanism.
The Rape-aXe has the ability to implicate problems on its own rather than prevent them. For such a controversial prevention tool to be sold in a world-wide market, the situation could become violent, as people would go to great lengths to prevent the female population from purchasing this torture tool.
And if Ehlers plans to sell this in American stores, would Congress even approve?
This is a historical invention for a worthy cause, but it goes a bit too far. It is an exaggerated method of attacking problems that will most likely never end. Admitting there is a problem is the first step, but inventing a torture device jumps off the path to a happy ending.
Margarita Campos is a creative writing sophomore and may be reached at [email protected].
It's a disgusting vile product and ultimately an absolute failure of an idea. It holds good intentions yes and one cannot deny that it would indeed to help in preventing rape. However whats to stop a fem-nazi or simply mean spirited woman from abusing this product? It wouldn't take much to bait in gullible and drunken men into having consensual sex with said woman and then when the deed is done one can imagine the outcome. Whats more whats to stop said woman from then claiming to an officer that it was attempted rape? It's not the most likely of scenarios but still extremely possible and there are definitely women of this mindset out there who would use this product out of hate because simply because they can and no man would be the wiser.
the average man is more likely to commit rape and not believe it was rape, than he is to be falsely accused of rape. i mean, most dudes go their whole lives without ever being accused of rape so if you are that afraid of being falsely accused then maybe you should stop doing rapey stuff.
not even going to address your vagina dentata/castration anxiety stuff except to say, wow see a therapist
hope this helps 🙂
I understand Zed's concerns because it seems like it would be easy to accuse a guy of rape. No questions asked. A guy would have to prove that he didn't do it instead of the other way around.
And I think Zed means being accused of rape by a girlfriend/ex-girlfriend not some random chick in the streets. So doing or not doing "rapey stuff" ,whatever you mean by that, wouldn't matter.
From the Rape Axe website:
QUESTION: "You will get vindictive woman that would want to get back at the guys and frame them. Do you hate men? "
ANSWER: You have a valid point, My advice, don't put what belongs to you where it does not belong and you will never run into trouble. No, I do not hate men I love men, I don't even hate the rapist however I hate his deed.
Although the answer doesn't really answer the question.
the website's answer seems pretty clear to me: try not to be a gross sketchy creep and your probability of getting hit with a rape allegation will sharply decrease. in my experience, the guys who really worry about this stuff are sleazy dudes who often come perilously close to committing date-rape.
i'm not sure what difference it makes whether the hypothetical woman is a girlfriend/ex/or random person or why doing legally suspect things to have sex with them wouldn't matter. you do know that women are much more likely to be raped by a significant other or close friend than they are a stranger, right?
No I meant random women on the street as well. The point still stands, its an accident just waiting to happen. If you have one bird who simply outright hates men then whats to stop her from taking her hatred out on some drunkard with this product especially when the drunk obviously wouldn't say no to some chick offering to have sex with him if she offered quite willingly to do so, he wouldn't have a clue as to what could possibly happen. The "vengeful-ex" scenario is even more likely to happen and whose to stop her from doing so? Sure the numbers would probably be meager in cases of this happening but that still doesn't make it less of an issue.
As for cakewalk it's perfectly legal to carry pepperspray, but that doesn't mean that rules out the chances of it being used out of spite on innocent people if the person is that crazy. The same principle could be applied to this product. It's legal to carry and use but it doesn't stop such acts from happening and it doesn't make it less of an issue.
the minimal likelihood of this happening is exactly why its a non-issue. being up in arms about some paranoid fantasy when there is an epidemic of violence against women in this country is pretty gross, brah.
you are literally afraid of women using their vagina to trick and assault you. the odds of this happening are so close to zero as makes no difference.
There is just as little chance of winning the lottery, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Plus as I said before whats to stop said woman from claiming it was rape in said scenario? It's her word against his and with the product its quite easy to implicate him for a crime that never happened. As I said its an accident waiting to happen.
what's to stop said guy from actually raping her, since that's way more likely to happen.
my point was that you are ignoring actual injustice in favor of indulging your persecution complex and that's a little weird.
Like I said in the very first post this product would curtail rape however there is no stopping the product from being quite easily abused.
Zed, you make a good point. Cakewalk, can't you see what he's trying to say? It's a product that — much like a handgun — is most likely to be used for self-defense, but still can be abused. Whether you admit it or not, this product (if sold in the US) would end up being used nefariously at least once; that's the law of averages speaking.
Zed's not indulging his 'persecution complex', he's just trying to bring up a reason why this product isn't as cut-and-dry as cakewalk's trying to make it out to be.
does your belief have any evidence to support it? has there been a rash of evil vengeful women using a similar product to the Rape-aXe to assault their ex's? if not, why do you consider widespread abuse to be plausible?
look, my main point was this: when zed commented on this article, his initial response was not "wow rape is a serious epidemic" or "could this thing possibly injure the woman if it breaks?" or "won't this only throw a rapist into a blind rage and put the victim's life at risk?".
instead he thinks that women are going to use this to hurt him and that's why its bad. rape is such a common crime in world that condoms are being developed to curtail it and guys like zed are saying b-b-but what about ME??? i found that to be gross so i said so.
The fact is though is that there hasn't been any product with such ramifications as this. The main design of this product is to prevent rape and more or less implicate the perpetrator. It's QUITE easy for an ex who is pissed off enough at you to pull a sick stunt like that and abuse the product. Not to mention given the product's design whats to stop the ex from saying he attempted to rape her and given that the product has to be surgically removed it would pretty much be enough evidence for most cops to put him in jail when he's totally innocent.
so you're still squealing on about how YOU could maybe possibly be victimized because you have a shameful lack of empathy for others. don't worry, if i were you, i wouldn't have a response to my second and third paragraphs either.
Thats because its a point that needs to be brought up. Just because women are mostly the victims doesn't mean that such things should be overlooked. And how does concern about how this product could be easily misused/abused not show empathy?
Maybe I didn't address your 2nd paragraph because its pretty obvious? However I made the assumption that if they were ready to sell this product they had to have been sure that it wouldn't harm the woman if it were to break (then again I also assumed that its common knowledge that if you harm yourself with any product and it wasn't faulty or broken then its your fault and not the company's fault for getting injured), if not then they're even more stupid for creating such a product without fully realizing how potentially dangerous it could be to others besides rapists. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out that rape is problematic, then again so is murder. It happens.
And its also a no-brainer that theres a chance the rapist could harm the woman if she used the product on him, then again she knew the risk if she knew there was a chance she was going to be raped and she decided to use the product. It would be stupid to assume otherwise and if there are going to be women who assume there could possibly be no negative consequences from using the product then thats another problem all together and another problem with the product since it creates a limited sense of security. However theres nothing that can be done about it because its impossible to prevent that reaction from happening and you're an idiot if you honestly believe it can be prevented.
So that being said my point still remains. Whats to stop the product from being abused in such a fashion? Does it make this abuse okay because women are usually the victims of rape? If you honestly believe it does then you have no say in this conversation since you're obviously an idiot.
"you have no say in this conversation" lol don't try to play the tough guy with me, pasty british kid. i'm making fun of you because your goofy scenario sounds like a fetish horror movie directed by david cronenberg.
your claim that you already considered all of those points is blatantly dishonest.
also, i'm not saying that abuse ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HAPPEN, i'm saying that 1.) in the face of an overwhelming number of rapes that actually take place, the handful of theoretical men who get caught in a tangled web of erotic intrigue are inconsequential and 2.) there are far more reasonable objections to releasing this product to a global market not based in deeply rooted trust issues with women.
now its time for you to scream END OF DISCUSSION and run away.
It's not a goofy scenario its a pretty real possibility. Oh and you obviously have the power to read minds. You have no clue who I am and no say or idea on what I consider before commenting on something. If you did have the power to read minds you'd realize I'm right on the matter because its an accident waiting to happen.
My points still stand, your arguments as I pointed out are either non-issues/non-related issues (harm to the women via angered rapists and accidentally harming themselves with the product when its not faulty or broken is a matter of the people in question, not the product itself) at best or bolster my point that this product isn't thoroughly thought through (assuming the product has potential to harm women and the product in fact has a faulty design/is easily breakable.)
1. That doesn't make it okay to overlook what happens. 2. Once again that doesn't dismiss the fact its a very realistic form of abuse this product can be used for. If you don't think so go argue your case with the likes of Valerie Solanas and all of her ilk and copycats. They would've wept for joy if such a product was available back in their day and wouldn't have been hesitant to abuse the product as soon as they got their hands on it.
WoW! It could do more harm than good. The men could get physical violent…even murder. Ladies! Just kick the guys in the groan and run fasttttt!
Because that applies to every rape situation. …
I understand that there are different approaches to protecting yourself in situations, but I don't think you understand how serious the problem is in the world and not only South African countries, though it seems to be most serious there.
What's wrong with a woman protecting herself however she wants?
As to the possibility of people claiming someone tried to rape them and offering this product as proof- that is something that could occur, however, that doesn't mean that it is good or even completely reliable as proof. Do you have so little faith in the judicial system that they wouldn't search for witnesses or other evidence such as a security tape showing two people struggling?
Frankly it's anyone's right to invent a product to better their life as well as others, and it's just as much anyone else's right to purchase it. If someone used such a product in a violent way they could be charged with assault or harassment. I think the only people worried about this are those who have casual sex and fear any of their partners being a little crazy. If you don't trust someone not to do something like that to you, why have sex with them?
You said it feels like a bear trap, how were you able to buy one if they are not sold in the U.S.?
How is it a torture device for women? Wouldn't rape be the torture device?
Why is it controversial in South Africa? If one out of two women will get raped in their life time then this thing sounds like it might be worth a try.
Unless the women just want to sit by until someone else fixes the problem, which is unlikely.
Why would the situation become violent if sold in the U.S.? I don't understand. And why would people want to stop women from buying this thing?
Why would congress need to approve? I wasn't aware that everything that goes on the market needs congress' approval.
If it isn't "approved" it could be sold "for medical use", like some adult toys are sold in certain areas.
Really good and thoughtful questions that suggest more research and more facts are needed.
Women in South Africa get raped so routinely that many have resorted to wearing very tight biker shorts for protection. This really isn't a joke; rape is a huge problem in South Africa. Why this is such a bad idea is beyond me, especially if the aim is expressly for South African women.
I'm surprised that people are critical of this idea. The only reason I can think of someone possibly not wanting this device produced is they are a rapist because all of the other reasons offered were irrational.
It seems like cakewalk is not interested in hearing any arguments and seems hellbent on denying an informed and unbiased argument from taking place. This maybe for a couple of reasons:
1. is a troll(internet troll not an actual troll)
2. knows or is someone who has been raped and therefore the issue hits closer to home and the argument becomes an emotional one rather than a logical one.
3. really does not understand or does not want to understand the point zed makes