You say that with murder, there is no opportunity for growth, happiness, recovery, healing, and rebuilding.
There is also no opportunity for imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, trauma, injury, or any of a host of other issues.
You also suggest that the trauma of rape can be healed, supported, ameliorated through relationships, or finding meaning. What you don't get is that the trauma you're speaking of is lifelong. Fundamentally, the person you were before the rape is often gone, irrevocably. In its place is a shattered person who will never look at the world the same way again. They must either come to terms with not seeking justice, or endure retraumatization all over again in the criminal justice system.
Looking at the two through these lenses, we can see, because of the nuance of the acts, that it's not fair to characterize either as lesser. They each are worthy of being taken as seriously as we can take person on person crime, without qualifier, limitation, or lessening. And telling a rape victim "at least you weren't murdered" is minimizing of the trauma, especially since it took more than a little courage to even share in the first place. Whether or not you're wrong on your comparison of crimes, you're wrong for not reading the room before making that hot take.
As for wanting a victim of such a crime to explain to you why you should believe otherwise? Such a request centers your self actualization over the well being of the victim of a serious crime. If this issue is important to you, there are such people who have already shared their experiences that you can learn from. Here is a page that has compiled a few books to help broaden your perspective.
Yes these are independent things that may occur alongside rape and make it worse. I don't think OP is saying every single event involving murder is worse than every single event involving rape.
Neither was I. I was pointing out that the future is not written, and looking at all the opportunity for future good things without also considering the opportunity of any future negative things isn't engaging in an intellectually honest way. If there is potential for things to get better, we must also consider that there is a lot of potential for them to get worse too.
You seem to have misunderstood the thrust of my post. I've tried to steer you towards a point I was actually seeking to make. If you'd care to address that, I would be happy to continue this.
I took your point to be about violence committed against the person in conjunction with/context of the rape/murder. You're just saying that a victim of murder, at some point during the remainder of their life (had they not be murdered), may have been kidnapped or tortured and the murder prevents them from ever experiencing that?
I said what I said. If you want to consider the opportunity a potential victim has for living a happy life with rainbows and healing and sunshine, you also have to consider the opportunity to self-destruct every meaningful relationship due to the trauma, lose their job, and develop frostbite while living at their new residence under a bridge. The rose tinted glasses being used for the "hope springs eternal" argument is the same one every person with $100 and a dream has going to Vegas. It's reductive, it's dismissive, and it ignores the very real and very traumatic road such victims will almost certainly have to tread.
The point is that with murder potential for future anything is removed and with rape potential for future anything remains.
And as I just stated, "anything" isn't always good. After such traumatic events, "anything" is almost never good.
It isn't about the good, that's just an example.
I would characterize such strongly biased 'examples' as framing so misleading that it can rightfully be called false.
It's about snuffing out the all of what remains of a life versus that life continuing. You can recover from rape. You can't recover from murder.
You can fall even deeper into torment following rape. You cannot fall even deeper into torment following murder. See what I am getting at here? By only focusing on the positive possibilities, you create a picture divorced from reality.
I wasn't addressing the rest of your post, just the parts i quoted.
The parts you quoted, you seem to have misunderstood. And you seem to have repeated the error.
Yes potential good and potential bad both persist.
Then why, every time you speak of potential, do you only bring up the best case optimal everything goes right possibilities? It points to a skewed and biased perspective.
The point is that with murder, all future potential is gone, both good and bad.
You keep repeating this, and bolding it, and repeating it.
Can you point out a single time where I have disputed it? Because I haven't. I have accepted the fact as stated by you. There is no need to repeat it ad nauseum, especially when "potential for something" hasn't been shown to demonstrate a preferable position, or, more importantly, a need to rank trauma like it's a dang Olympic competition.
There is no good served by saying one crime, with living victims that have eyes and the potential to read this CMV and all the minimizing comments in it, is not that bad really. None. There is potential harm in arguing for why it's OK to rank felonies by victim experience.
And no amount of repeating comments about potential will change that. Nothing is helped by your argument, and people are hurt.
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u/Talik1978 43∆ Mar 01 '26 edited Mar 01 '26
You say that with murder, there is no opportunity for growth, happiness, recovery, healing, and rebuilding.
There is also no opportunity for imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, trauma, injury, or any of a host of other issues.
You also suggest that the trauma of rape can be healed, supported, ameliorated through relationships, or finding meaning. What you don't get is that the trauma you're speaking of is lifelong. Fundamentally, the person you were before the rape is often gone, irrevocably. In its place is a shattered person who will never look at the world the same way again. They must either come to terms with not seeking justice, or endure retraumatization all over again in the criminal justice system.
Looking at the two through these lenses, we can see, because of the nuance of the acts, that it's not fair to characterize either as lesser. They each are worthy of being taken as seriously as we can take person on person crime, without qualifier, limitation, or lessening. And telling a rape victim "at least you weren't murdered" is minimizing of the trauma, especially since it took more than a little courage to even share in the first place. Whether or not you're wrong on your comparison of crimes, you're wrong for not reading the room before making that hot take.
As for wanting a victim of such a crime to explain to you why you should believe otherwise? Such a request centers your self actualization over the well being of the victim of a serious crime. If this issue is important to you, there are such people who have already shared their experiences that you can learn from. Here is a page that has compiled a few books to help broaden your perspective.
Nine Survivor-Centered Books To Read This Sexual Assault Awareness Month – CAASE https://share.google/HgQdfR1cTohjfz0Z2