Response to Chapter 3: "Achieving Stasis by asking the right questions" and class discussion

In my opinion, the way of looking for a stasis or the origin of an argument is not always the best way to investigate a rape case. This is because stasis theory focuses on the very origin of rape case and looks at questions like whether rape is a good thing, what happened in the rape case, what about man and woman’s testimonies, who is telling the true story. And sometimes these questions tie to very nasty and unclear answers. For instance, in the opinion of the victim, certain behavior is viewed as behavior of rape, but in the racist’s story, not so. So the stasis theory must ask questions about whether that behavior is embodied in the behaviors of sexual assault or rape. But it is hard to know if the testimonies are true, both the victim and the raper may provide some inaccurate information. Especially when the victim just went through the traumatic incident of rape, she may not remember clearly how she was raped, or what kind of behaviors the raper has had in a situation when she was threatened or harmed. In addition, the raper may distort the true story in an attempt to protect himself. Thus neither the raper nor the victim’s testimony are credible enough to prove the story to be true. In this case, finding the stance of the rape does not work due to inaccurate or distorted testimonies. Certain behaviors maybe there, maybe not, we are not sure. Another reason stasis theory may not work is even if the behavior is confirmed really exist, we cannot say such behavior does meet the standard behavior of rape. When a woman is forced by a man to commit certain sexual behavior, we don’t know if she can or cannot control the entire situation. If she cannot and is absolutely forced by the raper, then the raper’s behavior is considered as rape. But if she can control the situation, yet still let the guy sexually harass her, it is debatable whether she willingly accepts the situation and whether she also holds responsibility for the occurrence of the rape. Some people may wonder if she could control the situation why wouldn’t she pushed him away or just escape it. But it is possible that such situation happened, and the victim didn’t resist the raper when she had the chance to (due to whatever reason). The court thus cannot only blame the man for the incident of rape. Or maybe she seduced him first, and then regretted after she found out she was pregnant, so that she blamed the guy for having sex with her and made her pregnant (we don’t know). It is because all of these small details and unknown pieces, we can’t just conclude that the guy raped her, and we cannot conclude without evidence. I do agree with the instructor’s assumption that it is possible it’s the man(the raper)’s fault that he forced himself on her. Just like the instructor said in class that “big university athletes get a lot of passes,” but what if the truth is the exact opposite, that it’s not the guy’s fault but the girl’s. Even though in the cases of rape we experience some gender inequality, that people always holds no doubt that it is a guy’s fault for raping a girl because the male raper is stronger and holds more power; he can easily force himself on a girl because girls are usually weak and helpless. But we shouldn’t ignore the possibility that the victim also holds some responsibility for letting the incident(the rape) happen. In this case, I don’t think that stasis theory can uncover all the small details of the rape such as exactly who started the rape because the theory only ask general questions it can reach and ignores other possibilities.

I also think it’s interesting when the instructor asked if “human nature is a crime.” I think this is a perfect example of what I just said --- that stasis theory cannot investigate on ambiguous questions. Just like the theory cannot really help answer this question. Is human nature a crime? I would say, in my perspective, yes, if based on socially constructed laws and standards; and no, if we consider human beings as merely animals, and the concept of “rape” will line up with animal’s mating behavior, without any punishment and just simply due to our nature to mate with another. But others may argue that what distinguish us from wild beast is our emotion and sympathy, and government regulation is what ensures our survival as a unique kind. So I think such an ambiguous question involves ethical or moral problems, and cannot be solved by a single stance (if we find the stasis). Even if we know how the rape case is originated, we cannot really solve the case when this kind of question is discussed, because such question is challenging the concept of rape itself, by which I mean whether or not is right to rape a woman.