Hey, ladies. You know how we get, like, totally hysterical every time yet another Republican mansplains to us how sometimes rape isn’t really that bad because it’s not “legitimate” or “forcible” or because some girls “rape easy” or how, even if it’s bad, we should turn our frowns upside down and make the best of it because it’s a gift from God? Well, thrice-married serial adulterer Newt Gingrich says we need to stop that:

“Every candidate I know, every decent American I know, condemns rape. Okay? So, why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it?”

Golly, Newt. You are so right. Because hey, it’s only the right to one’s bodily integrity we’re taking about here. It’s not anything important… like, say, making sure that poor children spend more time cleaning the bathrooms in their schools than attending classes there.

50 Facts About Rape

1. Low estimate of the number of women , according to the Department of Justice, raped every year: 300,000
2. High estimate of the number of women raped, according to the CDC: 1.3 million
3. Percentage of rapes not reported: 54 percent
4. A woman’s chance of being raped in the U.S.: 1 in 5
5. Chances that a raped woman conceives compared to one engaging in consensual sex: at least two times as likely
6. Number of women in the US impregnated against their will each year in the U.S. as a result of rape: 32,000
7. Number of states in which rapists can sue for custody and visitation: 31
8. Chances that a woman’s body “shuts that whole thing down”: 0 in 3.2 billion
9. Rank of U.S. in the world for rape: 13th
10. A woman’s chance of being raped in college: 1 in 4 or 5
11. Chances that a Native American woman in the U.S. will be raped: 1 in 3
12. Percentage of women in Alaska who have suffered sexual assault: 37 percent
13. Number of rape kits untested by the Houston police force: 6,000-7,000 (Texas ranked second in nation for “forcible rape”)
14. Number of adult men accused of repeatedly gang raping 11-year-old girl in Texas: 14
15. Quote in the New York Times regarding the rape: “They said she dressed older than her age.”
16. Age of woman raped in Central Park in September, 2012: 73
17. Number of rape kits left untested in Detroit, listed by Forbes as one of two the most dangerous places for woman to live in the US: 11,303
18. U.S. state in which, in September 2012, mentally disabled rape victim was required to provide evidence of her “kicking, biting, scratching” in objection to her rape: Connecticut
19. State seeking to reduce childcare welfare benefits to women cannot provide proof of their pregnancy-causing rapes: Pennsylvannia
20. Percentage of sexual assault and rape victims under the age of 12: 15 percent
21. Percentage of men who have been raped: 3 percent
22. Percentage of rapists who are never incarcerated: 97 perent
23. Percentage of rapes that college students think are false claims: 50 percent
24. Percentage of rapes that studies find are false claims: 2-8 percent
25. Number of rapes reported in the military last year: 16,500
26. Pentagon’s estimated percentage of military assuaults not reported: 80-90 percent
27. Percentage of military rape victims who were gang raped/raped more than once: 14%/20%
28. Percentage of military rape victims that are men: 8-37 percent
29. Percentage of military victims who get an “involuntarily” discharge compared to percentage of charged and accused who are discharged with honor: 90 percent involuntary to 80 percent with honor
30. Chances an incarcerated person is raped in the U.S.: 1 in 10
31. Increase in chance that LGTB prisoner is raped: 15x greater chance
32. Number of men raped that could be counted as legally raped before the FBI changed its definition in December of 2011: 0
33. Number of rapes noted in commonly used World War II statistics: 0
34. Number of rapes of WWII concentration camp inmates: Untallied millions
35. Number of rapes of German women by Russian soldiers at the end of WWII: between 1m and 2m
36. Number of women raped in 1990s Bosnian conflict: 60,000+
37. Number of women raped per hour in Congo during war: 48
38. Country where 12 year old was forced to participate in the rape of his mother: U.S.
39. Country where women are imprisoned for being raped: Afghanistan
40. Age of Moroccan rape victim who committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist: 16
41. Worldwide number of “child brides” under the age of 18 forced to marry every day: 25,000
42. Ages of girls forced to marry a 59-year-old at the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry in Arkansas: 8, 14, 15
43. Estimated number of people, primarily children, sexually abused by priests in the U.S. versus the number of senior Catholic officials found guilty of sexual abuse related crimes in the U.S.: 10,667 to 1
44. Chances that a woman in the U.S. is raped versus gets breast cancer: 2 to 1
45. Chances that a victim is “Emergency Raped” by a stranger versus percentage of victims who consider their rapes emergencies: 7 percent versus 100 percent
46. Percentage of victims of rape who report the use of a weapon: 11 percent
47. Prison sentences for four men found guilty of participating in gang rapes of two teenage girls in France over two years: one year, six months, suspended sentence
48. State where in 2012 a doctor is facing the loss of her medical license for providing an abortion to a pregnant10-year old incest rape victim: Kansas
49. Country where doctors (but not the rapist) were excommunicated for performing a life-saving abortion to nine-year-old incest rape victim: Brazil
50. Country where major party’s vice-presidential candidate wants to criminalize all abortions including rape-related ones, because rape is just “another method of conception”: U.S.

Think before you vote because none of this means anything to the GOP. Well, except for the part where they think it’s a fine idea to prosecute doctors for saving the lives of pre-teen rape victims.

Warning: this is very frank on the subject of rape and rapists and could be very triggering, but if you can handle it, it’s a must-read.

In a 4-3 ruling Tuesday afternoon, the Connecticut State Supreme Court overturned the sexual assault conviction of a man who had sex with a woman who “has severe cerebral palsy, has the intellectual functional equivalent of a 3-year-old and cannot verbally communicate.” The Court held that, because Connecticut statutes define physical incapacity for the purpose of sexual assault as “unconscious or for any other reason… physically unable to communicate unwillingness to an act,” the defendant could not be convicted if there was any chance that the victim could have communicated her lack of consent. Since the victim in this case was capable of “biting, kicking, scratching, screeching, groaning or gesturing,” the Court ruled that that victim could have communicated lack of consent despite her serious mental deficiencies

There are no words for my shock, disgust, fury, and horror at this decision. What they have done means it’s open season on the disabled now.

coffeewithants:

HUGE TRIGGER WARNING for satirical discussion of rape and explicit description, but this is just a really great response to rape apology and victim-blaming arguments.

Why is everybody so down on rape? This is what Mike Huckabee wanted to know today, on his radio program, which also featured Rep. Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin as a guest.

Thank you, Mr. Huckabee, for informing us about why raping women might not be so bad. What would we do without you? Hey, maybe we don’t need those silly laws making rape illegal after all!

Excuse me while I go somewhere and rage.

1. Kennedy believed that rape victims who chose abortion are “hysterical.” In “Abortion: Myths and Realities,” Kennedy labels victims of rape who chose unsafe abortions when safer procedures are illegal “hysterical,” saying “We are told by some of the radical feminists that the women will become hysterical, that they will abort themselves with coat hanger.” Abortion rates are, in fact, higher in nations where the procedure is criminalized, and men describing women whose choices they disapprove of as “hysterical” has a storied sexist history.

2. Kennedy suggests rape victims can be responsible for being raped. In “Life: An Inalienable Right,” Kennedy expresses concern that rape victims who chose to get an abortion are occasionally responsible for their own rape, saying that “Even if they want to say the woman had some part in it—which in most cases they probably don’t—surely the baby did nothing wrong, so the only innocent party is killed and the rapist often goes free.” He doesn’t elaborate on how this might be true, but another Kennedy sermon says “the immodest woman is contributing to the lust of other people” by wearing revealing clothing.

3. Kennedy held that the Bible should set our laws about rape and abortion. Kennedy is very explicit on this point, saying “In the Bible, the child of rape was allowed to live and the rapist was put to death. Today, we find that the penalties against rape have become more and more lenient, whereas the child is now the subject of capital punishment. Justice has been totally destroyed and perverted in that the guilty are practically allowed to go free and the innocent are killed.” This fits with Kennedy’s general view that we should “rebuild America based on the Bible.”

4. Kennedy thought husbands should determine if their wives can have abortions. Though not specifically addressing rape, Kennedy approvingly cited a Roman prohibition on abortion motivated by the husbands should have control over women’s reproductive choice, saying “That newly created life is as much the husband’s as it is the wife’s. Historically, it is interesting to note that when the Roman Empire did away with laws that allowed abortion, it was done not because of the woman or the harm that abortions were doing to women (and indeed they do vastly more harm than most people are aware of), but because the husband was being defrauded of his progeny.” Interestingly, Akin has worried that criminalizing marital rape provides women “a legal weapon to beat up on the husband.”

- Zach Beauchamp (Think Progress)