In Defense of Richard Stallman

Re:In Defense of Richard Stallman by ORioN63 on Monday September 30, 2019 @07:04AM (#21113786)

I'm split on your comment.

On one side, you indeed quote Stallman itself and the source of the quote. On the other side the complete quote reads:

     The term is applied to a broad range of actions, ranging from stealing a kiss to rape, as well as other things in between. It acts as propaganda for treating them the same.

     There seems to be an exception for TSA agents, however.

     The term is further stretched to include sexual harassment, which is not a specific act, but rather a pattern of acts that amounts to a form of gender bias. Gender bias is rightly prohibited in certain situations for the sake of equal opportunity.

     I don't think that rape should be treated like stealing a kiss, so I reject the term "sexual assault" completely.

Reading the full context and your except was totally different for me. The full context, implies he doesn't accept the term, because it's an umbrella term that does more harm, than good. That's arguable, but doesn't seem a radical opinion.

In fact, IMO, I agree that using "sexual assault" for something other than rape / attempt of, is depreciating the full meaning of the term and victims are normally the first ones to be affected by it. I do agree that other crimes, born from gender inequality, are very serious as well - that doesn't mean, we should bundle them up. How would society react, if slaps started to be prosecuted as attempted murders?

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Re:In Defense of Richard Stallman by spats1990 on Monday September 30, 2019 @07:20AM (#21113921)

Hmm. I wasn't trying to twist his words at all, so thanks for quoting in full.

If I see a problem with his characterization of the term "sexual assault" / his reasoning in rejecting it, it's that the "broad range of actions" he says are labeled with the term "sexual assault" share one common trait: they happened without the consent of one party. He kind of ignores this in favour of describing the term as "propaganda for treating [acts of non-rape] as the same". And I find the argument that "one unwanted act that I and presumably others find mostly harmless was described as sexual assault, thus this term has lost its meaning in general" somewhat hard to swallow.

Wikipedia: "Sexual assault is an act in which a person intentionally sexually touches another person without that person's consent, or coerces or physically forces a person to engage in a sexual act against their will."[1]

If we did away with the term "sexual assault", I'm not sure what terms we would be left with when describing such things, except to describe the exact acts themselves.

In fact, I'm not sure if I buy the idea that "the term sexual assault is losing/has lost its meaning because it used to mean rape" at all, because there has always been a word for that: rape. As far as I know, this term has always existed to describe a broad-range of sexual acts performed without consent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_assault

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