I often times ask taboo questions that people seem to villify me for. This is going to be one of these times. Of all the crimes out there, I believe the only two that can be given any stake to the worst crime are rape and murder. I'm not of the Afghan notion that all crime is stealing so this is a ridiculous argument, I do not consider murder or rape stealing even though I will use words like "Theft" and "Taken"when describing murder.
If you murder someone, they are dead. You have taken a life. Their friends and family will grieve vehemently at this heinous crime. Some of them may want revenge and seek out to kill the muderer with good cause. As for the murdered party, they do not have to live with the horror of what happened to them. They also will not get to experience the things they may have seen or done had they not been killed. I don't like that because you have no idea how someone's life will progress. I'm sure homeless people didn't think they'd be homeless. The person could have failed in their business ventures and hated their life. Potential worth cannot be measured without making assumptions so I discount these notions. One aspect that will help murder in this debate is the bible has a commandment "Thou Shalt not commit murder" but not one for rape. They do have some for coveting a neighbors wife, which can be extended to rape if the person is married but you do not have it singled out the way murder does. The biggest argument I see for muder's side is that women will "choose" to be raped to avoid being murdered.
When you rape someone you have forced them to have sex with you whether by mere physical means or put them in a situation where they were too scared to say no. This causes intense anger from friends and family and the need for revenge is much greater. As for the victim, they have to live with the knowledge that they were raped. Some rape victims never recover from the emotional anguish and seculde themselves in the hospital and put themselves in a catatonic medically unresponsive state. Others do maintain a relatively normal lifestyle. Most, however, are somewhere in between. It is very common that they generalize their assualt to all men and perhaps become Lesbians. They overreact to the slightest touch of a man and see it as violent. Some spend astronomical amounts of money on psychologist, which never seem to help. Then again, psychologists don't seem to help in any situation. This is not a good way to go through life. The real question is living with being raped a fate worse than death? Also common in rape is vaginal or anal tearing. This leads to medical bills and infections, especially in the anal case. Semen is an immunosuppressant so it is designed to weaken the defenses agaisnt toxins and the rectal walls are very thin and given what exits from the rectum, the likelihood of infection is high. Also, it is an increased risk of STD's. Unlike consentual sex, when raped, a woman's vaginal walls do not lubricate themselves, and the body will actually tighten up as a defense mechanisms, which only makes the damage worse. Even though, this natural defense will block a path to the uterus making it difficult to become pregnant, this is negated because semen can live inside the vagina for up to three days. After the rape encounter is over, the body reopens the path, thus the semen can continue its journey. Because of this, it is a myth when people claim that you can't get pregnant from being raped. Since it is still rare, I won't heavily weight the pregnancy aspect and all the emotional stress that comes with having an unwanted baby or an abortion.
Now that we have put forth what happens in either case, let's combine them. Similar to murder, when you rape someone, you have committed immeasurable damage. You cannot measure the grief that friends and family have though in a rape victims case, there is less sadness from friends and family but more anger. The need for revenge from friends and family is much stronger with rape than it is for murder. The men close to the injured paty in both situations will feel a sense of inadequacy since they are the ones who were supposed to protect them. You don't really see this if a male gets raped or murdered since the thought is they are supposed to defend themselves. It's interesting that when it comes to rape, raping a woman is seen as much worse than raping a man. When evaluating the friends and family affect of rape, the definitive question is does the enhanced anger in the case of rape make up for the sadness in the murder case? I feel that the more emotions that are triggered, the worse the crime. This is why when evaulating the effect of friends and family, the edge goes to murder.
As it comes to the victim, in both rape and murder it is highly unlikely the victim will have a normal life after being raped and impossible in the murder case. There is no emotional scarring from being murdered because the victim is dead. The generalization of all men are evil and never being able to trust men is likely with rape. The rape victim will have to go through the therapy and medical treatment involved in rape, whereas a murder victim avoids this aspect. The cost of a funeral is high, but that goes to family usually. Medical bills normally go to insurance or taxpayers, but it's highly annoying going to get treatment of any kind. Now, some argue that it is theoretically possible that a rape victim can fully recover emotionally and physically from the encounter and this is not a possibility in murder but the likelihood seems too low for me to weight it heavily. When evaluating the effect on the victim, the edge seems to go to the rape victim.
Now the question is, which is the greater discrepancy? Is the gap between affect on family and friends between murder and rape larger than the gap between effect on the victim with rape? Answer that, and the worst crime is found. I find myself leaning toward being raped is worse but I do not fear death so I am likely biased. I also look at the common political strategy in dealing with a scandal. They liken it to cutting off the tail of a dog. It's much more humane to just do it in one cut then to cut a little piece off and work you're way up the tail. Murder seems to be just doing it one cut, but rape has so much more things for the victim to deal with that it's cutting the tail off a little bit at a time. Despite this conclusion, I can't seem to get it out of my head that when women are put in the situation, they choose rape over murder, that is the only thing that stops me from being completely certain of my conclusion.
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