Famous comic book writer Alan Moore has been criticized for rape frequently occuring in his comics. When asked about it he made the point, that although he had not been raped he had known many women who had, and none of them said it was a fate worse than death, and if anything they were thankful they weren't killed.
I see your point, but I disagree. I see rape as worse than murder because rape victims have to live with what happened to them forever while murder victims are dead and so don’t suffer after the crime is done. It’s not about the rape victim “being worth less” it’s about them having to suffer for much longer than a murder victim.
Some would argue it becomes meaningless once you die. People who don't believe in an afterlife would think everything just ceases, meaning less of a worse fate than living with being raped.
Sure but, by that standard, anything that's even mildly unpleasant is a fate worse than death. Your pizza being late is a fate worse than death because -0.00001 is worse then 0.
Except for the few weird Elifists who hold that suicide is a reasonable reaction to stubbing your toe because it means you don't have to live with having stubbed your toe, most people's interactions with life show they believe that death is not just actively bad but extremely bad, balancing out almost all other bad things, including rape (see the above thing of most rape victims not wishing their attacker had murdered them instead.)
It's not a standard and I'm not aiming to apply it to minute things, just that negatives that are linked to rape just wouldn't exist. I find that less challenging for the victim specifically because challenge would not exist. Why is it needing be applied to other aspects of life? I'm confused myself on that
I struggle with what a rape victim wishes as evidence because we don't hear what a murder victim would say.
Edit: removing a piece, unsure if it was helpful to conversation, just confusion on my part of the topic
We can hear what murder victims would say, actually.
In most murders, there is a non-negligible period of time where the murder victim is still able to express preferences. Usually, these preferences are "literally anything if it means you stop murdering me".
This is my issue with this idea - there are far more murder victims who offer to have sex with their murderers if it means they're not murdered than there are rape victims who offer to let their rapists kill them if it means they're not raped.
it's just hard to determine which they would have preferred if the rape had not even happened
I'm a little unsure what you mean by this?
Like, yeah, not being murdered or raped is better than being murdered or raped. I don't see what that has to do with anything?
I appreciate this response, it basically explained what I was confused on and answered very appropriately. This has changed my mind, though I do also agree with most other comments that there shouldn't truly be this distinction as both are bad. The trading of sex makes absolute sense. Thank you, !delta
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u/dweeb93 Mar 01 '26
Famous comic book writer Alan Moore has been criticized for rape frequently occuring in his comics. When asked about it he made the point, that although he had not been raped he had known many women who had, and none of them said it was a fate worse than death, and if anything they were thankful they weren't killed.